UC-NRLF 


SB    S71    431 

Toil 


and  Another 


ORIENT. 4  F,    I,TT!T>tT?V      V^l    T   TC.^ 


GEORGE  HOLMES  HOWISON 


)  £  *  A  . 

Toil  and   Self 


BY  MYSELF  AND  ANOTHER 


CHICAGO  AND  NEW  YORK  : 
RAND,  McNALLY  &  COMPANY, 

PUBLISHERS. 


C3 


Copyright,  1900,  by  Rand,  McNally  &  Co. 


THESE 

DESULTORY  OBSERVATIONS 
ARE  DEDICATED 

TO 
THE  ALMIGHTY  DOLLAR 

AND 
THE  EVERLASTING  EGO. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

LECTURE  I 9 

LECTURE  II 25 

LECTURE  III  A 39 

LECTURE  III  B 51 

LECTURE  IV 71 

LECTURE  V 81 

LECTURE  VI 93 

LECTURE  VII .  115 

LECTURE  VIII 129 

LECTURE  IX      . 141 


TOIL  AND  SELF 


LECTURE  I 

THE   LESSONS    OF   FRICTION 

It  was  in  the  year  2400  A.  D.,  in  a  large 
lecture-room  of  Yale  University,  that  Profes- 
sor Winter,  a  man  high-browed,  broad  be- 
tween the  eyes,  with  full  wide  jaw  and  chin, 
and  that  rather  long  nose  which  loves  to  delve 
into  all  the  dark  corners  of  history,  addressed 
his  .class  as  follows : 

It  gives  me  pleasure,  gentlemen,  to  begin 
with  you  this  course  of  study  on  the  great  la- 
bor question,  and  as  a  prelude  let  me  say  that 
what  we  find  fundamental  in  every  clime  and 
age,  and  after  all  (when  we  analyze  it  careful- 
ly) God-given  and  necessary,  is  the  vital  law  of 
selfishness,  whereby  every  human  being  looks 
out  for  himself,  first  and  last.  The  most  grind- 

(9) 


10  Toil    and    Self  , 

ing  capital'V,  and  the  laziest  of  tramps,  are 
in  one  respect  identical.  Each  one  in  his  way 
pushes  the  law  of  selfishness  to  its  extreme. 
The  one  seeks  more  for  his  dollar  paid  than 
he  ought  legitimately  to  get ;  the  other  seeks 
to  give  less  for  his  dollar  received  than  he 
ought  legitimately  to  give,  or,  perchance,  he 
demands  of  the  world,  that  it  shall  give  him 
the  necessaries  of  life,  without  calling  on  him 
for  any  labor.  Altruism  and  philanthropy  are 
merely  products  of  civilization,  the  outgrowth 
of  intellectual  progress  and  of  religious  teach- 
ing. Without  selfishness  humanity  could  not 
exist.  It  is  a  primal  necessity  of  the  intricate 
mechanism  of  life  that  each  specimen  should 
zealously,  sedulously,  and  persistently  look 
out  for  himself.  Life  would  be  chaos  and 
misery,  were  it  not  for  this  law. 

The  excess  of  selfishness  is  the  only  cause 
of  misfortune.  The  true  ideal  is  a  just  admix- 
ture of  selfishness  and  altruism.  Great  labor 
and  socialistic  movements  have  swept  over  the 
world,  we  may  say,  for  seven  centuries,  and  I 
hope  to  hold  your  earnest  attention  as  I  touch 


Toil    and    Self  11 

on  the  rise,  climax,  and  recession  of  many  of 
these  movements,  and  especially  those  of  the 
nineteenth  and  twentieth  centuries,  which  were 
actively  seething.  Possibly  excepting  religion, 
it  has  been  the  widest,  deepest,  and  most  far- 
reaching  of  any  movement  which  has  ever 
sprung  from  human  emotion,  appealed  to  the 
nobler  side  of  civilized  men,  and  affected  for 
weal  or  woe,  both  the  domestic  affections  and 
the  physical  conditions  of  humanity.  The  rise 
and  growth  of  most  religions  has  been  local, 
when  compared  to  the  socialistic  movement, 
and  the  revolutions  and  secessions  of  individ- 
ual nations  have  been  but  incidents  compared 
to  this  great  drama.  The  explanation  of  this 
is  found  in  the  fact  that,  while  creeds  or  lan- 
guages appealed  only  to  the  followers  of  that 
creed,  or  those  who  spoke  that  language,  the 
socialistic  movement  was  broad  and  funda- 
mental, and  could  be  joined  in  by  any  man  in 
the  land,  speaking  any  tongue,  worshiping 
any  God,  or  no  God,  pursuing  any  occupa- 
tion, or  having  no  occupation.  Liberty  was 
the  password  of  the  world.  What  strikes  the 


12  Toil    and    Self 

mind  especially  in  the  study  of  this  labor 
movement,  is  its  evolutionary  rather  than  its 
revolutionary  character.  The  former  feature 
has  been  closely  logical,  constant,  and  pro- 
gressive. The  latter  has  been  spasmodic  and 
short-lived,  and  merely  an  incident  in  the 
march  of  human  experience. 

It  is  truly  marvelous  to  see  how  slowly  prin- 
ciples became  crystallized  and  accepted,  and 
how,  through  a  long  succession  of  collisions 
of  labor  and  capital,  certain  truths  were 
learned  and  codified.  Each  new  phase  seemed 
the  direct  off  spring  of  the  previous  outbreak  or 
effort,  and  each  taught  its  lesson,  established 
some  new  fact,  or  exploded  some  previous 
error.  All  the  money  that  seemed  wasted,  and 
the  blood  that  seemed  spilled  in  vain,  were 
after  all  a  necessary  expense  that  went  worth- 
ily toward  creating  a  new  and  better  order  of 
things,  and  aided  somewhat  in  bringing  in- 
creased happiness  to  suffering  humanity. 

The  idea  of  the  federation  of  laborers  was 
as  natural  and  inevitable  as  was  that  of  wor- 
shipers of  the  same  creed,  or  of  any  other 


Toil    and    Self  13 

body  having  identical  aims  and  objects.  Prac- 
tically it  began  (so  far  as  history  relates)  with 
the  workers  in  Solomon's  Temple,  in  the  soci- 
ety of  Freemasons,  but  it  appeared  in  fuller 
form  and  elaboration  in  the  trade-guilds  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  These  guilds,  however,  had 
few,  if  any  collisions  with  employers.  Labor 
was  in  demand  and  wants  were  simple,  so  that 
their  character  was  peaceful,  and,  aside  from 
being  self-protective,  they  were  chiefly  edu- 
cational, social  and  charitable.  But  during  the 
early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century,  many 
specific  organizations  arose.  Mechanical 
schools,  with  corps  of  well-trained  teachers, 
filled  the  demands  for  education  and  were 
often  free.  Public  reading-rooms,  and  a  great 
variety  of  social  and  political  clubs  were  or- 
ganized, and  life  insurance  societies  (mutual, 
co-operative  and  accident)  supplanted  the 
function  of  the  guild  in  that  department. 

Consequently  the  guild  as  such  fell  into 
desuetude,  but  as  an  outgrowth  of  it  the  labor 
union  sprang  up,  which  had  for  its  sole  pur- 
pose and  object  the  protection,  improvement, 


14  Toil    and    Self 

and  advancement  of  the  labor  interests.  These 
societies  were  for  the  most  part  semi-secret; 
membership  was  open  and  avowed,  but  their 
meetings,  and  often  their  movements,  were 
conducted  with  more  or  less  secrecy. 

Organization  of  labor  as  opposed  to  capital 
was  the  natural  result  of  the  enormous  power 
of  capitalism,  produced  and  fostered  by  in- 
creasing mechanical  invention.  The  laborer 
was  quick  to  perceive  that  the  consolidation 
which  gave  the  capitalist  strength  would  serve 
his  own  side  as  well.  The  tradition  of  sub- 
ordination under  which  they  and  their  ances- 
tors had  worked  for  centuries  completely  con- 
trolled their  actions  for  a  long  period,  and  in 
all  their  meetings  and  literature  it  was  im- 
pressed on  them  that  the  limitation  of  their 
field  was  co-operation  for  self-defense.  Their 
platform  was  that  they  could  legislate  within 
themselves  only  as  to  what  they,  individually, 
severally  or  collectively,  would  or  would  not 
do,  and  as  a  concomitant  of  this  they  accepted 
the  tenet  that  they  should  not  in  anywise  die- 


Toil    and    Self  15 

tate  to  capitalists  or  corporations  how  they 
should  conduct  their  business. 

The  Civil  War  in  the  United  States  occur- 
ring about  1860,  and  lasting  some  five  years,' 
had  a  strong  influence  on  the  labor  question, 
for  thousands  of  men  serving  as  soldiers  be- 
came imbued  with  the  spirit  of  organized  re- 
sistance. They  had  been  surrounded  by  blood- 
shed and  violence,  and  educated  to  fighting  as 
the  chief  factor  in  attaining  an  end.  Although 
maintenance  of  the  principle  of  law  and  order 
was  the  object  of  the  war,  it  became  subordi- 
nated in  their  minds.  Especially  as  an  equally 
salient  object  was  freedom  from  bondage  and 
tyranny.  When  peace  was  declared  and  the 
army  disbanded  these  men  became  for  the 
most  part  quiet  citizens,  peacefully  seeking 
work  in  all  avenues  of  trade,  and  in  all  parts 
of  the  country,  but  a  few  carried  the  spirit  of 
conflict  with  them,  and  even  their  simple  nar- 
rations of  war  scenes  aroused  it.  Thus  the 
idea  of  opposing  force  to  force  gradually  took 
root  in  the  minds  of  men,  and  materially  aided 
the  incipiency  of  strikes,  although  it  was  main- 


16  Toil    and    Self 

ly  the  rougher  foreign  element  which  first  en- 
gaged in  riotous  acts.  Within  the  limits  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  however,  the  wage-earn- 
ers learned,  through  the  force  of  prison  logic, 
aided  by  army  muskets,  that  violence  and  the 
destruction  of  property  offended  the  majesty 
of  the  law  as  much  when  used  to  establish 
what  seemed  to  them  a  just  end  as  when  they 
were  caused  by  wantonness  and  crime.  The 
leaders  and  thinkers  soon  learned  also  that 
lawlessness  only  injured  their  causeNwith  the 
public  and  with  the  best  men  of  their  own 
class.  In  fact  violence  was  rarely,  if  ever,  the 
direct  intention  of  the  body  of  strikers.  It 
was  chiefly  the  act  of  a  few,  unchecked  by  the 
leaders,  who  were  sometimes  more  than  half 
willing  not  to  check  it,  and  then  joined  in 
by  the  more  sober  strikers  who  were  led  away 
by  the  excitement  of  the  moment ;  but  there 
is  no  doubt  that  violence  would  have  become 

V 

the  favorite  and  general  method  or  argument 
had  it  not  been  promptly  met  with  vigorous 
repression. 
At  first  these  unions  were  infested  with  a 


Toil    and    Self  17 

class  of  demagogues  and  so-called  walking 
delegates,  whose  chief  object  was  political  ad- 
vancement, or  personal  gain;  but  the  men 
soon  learned  to  know  the  characteristics  of 
that  special  parasite,  and  speedily  walked  him 
out  of  their  way,  choosing  le*ss  noisy  and  wiser 
officers.  The  change  was  brought  about  by 
altering  the  method  of  paying  salaries  to  the 
leaders.  At  first  they  received  a  fixed  sum 
per  month,  far  more  than  they  could  earn  by 
labor,  and  they  were  naturally  anxious  to  show 
the  public  their  authority  and  to  prove  their 
great  value  to  the  union ;  consequently  strikes 
were  frequently  ordered. 

But  later  they  received  only  small  salaries, 
and  a  percentage  pro  rata  on  the  current  wage- 
earnings  of  their  order ;  so  that  their  pay  was 
high  when  that  of  the  men  was  high,  low  when 
it  was  low,  and  stopped  entirely  during  the 
strikes.  While  this  did  not  end  the  troubles,  it 
went  a  long  way  toward  lessening  their  fre- 
quency. One  serious  weakness  of  all  the 
strikes  during  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  was  that  the  workmen  were  not  aim- 


18  Toil    and    Self 

ing  toward  the  establishment  of  any  definite 
principle.  Their  attacks  were  largely  on  local 
and  temporary  questions,  such,  for  instance,  as 
the  number  of  working  hours,  the  wages  to 
be  paid,  and  the  men  who  should  or  should 
not  be  employed  as  superintendents.  Un- 
fortunately for  them,  the  practical  bearing 
of  any  strike  looked  toward  establish- 
ing a  rule  that  the  management  of  that 
business  should  be  in  the  hands  of  the  em- 
ployed, rather  than  of  the  employer,  and 
as  that  principle  was  utterly  subversive  of  the 
inherent  rights  of  the  capitalists,  the  strikers 
of  that  period  made  little  real  headway.  The 
antagonism  engendered  by  strikes,  especially 
the  "sympathetic  strike,"  so-called  (in  which 
whole  bodies  of  workmen  quit  work  not  for 
personal  grievances,  but  because  their  fellows 
in  the  same  or  allied  trades  had  struck),  pro- 
duced much  ill-feeling.  In  spite  of  the  efforts 
of  just-minded  employers,  and  of  increasing 
philanthropy,  to  create  conditions  more  favor- 
able to  the  working  classes,  it  was  evident 
that  employers  generally  would  not  be  willing 


Toil    and    Self  19 

to  promise  much  permanent  improvement  to 
men  who  at  any  moment  might  desert  their 
workshops  if  dissatisfied.  Nor  would  they  tol- 
erate any  dictation  from  outsiders  as  to  their 
relations  with  their  employes,  for  they  con- 
sidered that  to  be  the  rankest  violation  of  the 
first  principles  of  liberty.  The  workmen,  on 
the  other  hand,  held  as  their  sole  offensive 
weap'on  not  only  the  power  to  embarrass  their 
immediate  principals,  but  also,  by  the  spread  of 
a  strike,  to  affect  the  welfare  of  the  public  at 
large ;  as  when,  in  1894,  the  railroad  men  tied 
up  the  traffic  of  several  cities  and  States,  and 
delayed  the  United  States  mails,  because,  for- 
sooth, of  reduced  wages  among  the  employes 
of  one  car  factory.  These  methods  called  for 
prompt  suppression  by  the  hand  of  the  law, 
and  by  military  force,  and  they  aroused  the 
indignation  of  the  public  who  suffered  from 
them.  Thus  the  workingmen  found  them- 
selves condemned,  even  by  many  who  sympa- 
thized with  their  hardships,  and  through  the 
misuse  of  their  strongest  weapon  they  de- 
feated their  own  interests.  When  they  stopped 


20  Toil    and    Self 

to  think,  the  clear-headed  among  them  saw 
that  whatever  they  gained  in  wages  was  in  the 
end  paid  by  the  public  as  consumers,  hence  by 
their  fellow  workmen  in  considerable  degree, 
and  not  by  the  employers.  It  was  a  case  of  the 
striker  struck.  Thus  it  was  by  very  slow  de- 
grees that  real  advancement  was  made  on 
either  side,  and  that  true  and  just  tenets  began 
to  be  acknowledged  and  respected. 

One  great  and  advantageous  result  arising 
from  all  the  effervescence  of  that  period  was 
that  the  laboring  men  began  to  think  out  and 
formulate  principles,  and  the  capitalists  also 
sought  to  know  the  true  limits  of  the  work- 
men's legitimate  claims  and  of  their  own 
rights. 

The  result  reached  by  the  beginning  of  the 
twentieth  century  was  that  the  following 
points  were  accepted  by  all  as  sound  labor 
law :  First — That  the  laborer  has  no  right  to 
interfere  with  the  workings  of  any  business, 
whether  carried  on  by  an  individual  or  a  cor- 
poration. Second — That  the  heads  of  any  bus- 
iness can  employ  or  discharge  such  men  as 


Toil    and    Self  21 

seem  to  them  advisable,  and  can  offer  such 
wages  and  terms  as  they  see  fit,  and  that,  vice 
versa,  any  labor  union  can  accept  or  decline 
the  same,  and  is  also  at  perfect  liberty  to 
peaceably  dissuade  other  men  from  accepting 
terms  offered  by  employers.  Third — Any  vio- 
lence to  person  or  property  on  either  side  is 
a  violation  of  the  law,  and  a  crime,  and  should 
be  punished  as  such,  promptly  and  fully. 

The  workmen  were  striving  strenuously  to 
establish  the  further  principle  that  the  laborer 
is  "worthy  of  his  hire,  and  that  since  he  was 
never  made  a  partner  in  the  profits,  there  was 
absolutely  no  reason  why  he  should  be  made 
to  share  in  the  losses;  that  since  his  interest 
in  the  business  is  nil,  and  the  equivalent  he 
gives  is  fixed,  therefore  his  wage  ought  to  be 
a  fixed  one,  and  the  surplus  or  sinking  fund 
of  the  employer  should  alone  be  affected  by 
profits  and  losses.  It  was  evident  that  the 
workman  had  a  fixed  wage  in  the  best  of 
times,  which  could  go  no  higher,  even  if  the 
business  were  paying  300  per  cent  on  its  cap- 
ital, but  he  was  promptly  cut  off  10,  20,  30,  or 


22  Toil    and    Self 

50  per  cent  the  moment  the  manufacturer  be- 
gan to  lose  i  per  cent.  Why?  The  work- 
man was  giving  precisely  the  same  amount 
of  work,  the  same  brain  and  muscle  effort  for 
the  same  number  of  hours  per  day ;  on  what 
grounds  should  he  suddenly  become  the  part- 
ner of  the  manufacturer  when  the  latter  be- 
gan to  lose?  The  law  appreciated  the  fact 
that  he  should  not,  when  it  made  the  work- 
man's wage  the  first  and  the  prior  lien  on  a 
bankrupt's  assets,  or  on  a  house  built.  No 
one  ever  heard  of  a  strike  because  a  mill  was 
partly  shut  down  for  lack  of  orders.  The 
laborer  instinctively  acknowledged  and  acqui- 
esced in  the  right  of  any  mill  owner  to  shut 
down  his  mill  when  he  could  find  no  market 
for  his  goods.  But  often  the  manufacturer 
strove  to  pose  as  a  philanthropist,  and  claimed 
that  he  was  employing  his  men  on  half  wages, 
because  "half  a  loaf  is  better  than  no  bread." 
This  was  pure  sophistry,  for  if  demand  was 
dull,  and  the  maker  continued  to  make  his  full 
quota  of  goods  at  half  cost,  he  merely  stacked 
up  more  provision  wherewith  to  glut  the  mar- 


Toil    and    Self  23 

ket,  and  keep  prices  unduly  low.  Let  him 
shut  down  entirely,  sell  out  his  stock  and  start 
afresh,  or  else  let  him  run  on  half  time,  at  the 
full  rate  of  wage  for  the  hours  of  actual  work. 
Workmen  did  not  strike  against  the  half-work, 
half-pay  basis,  because  they  felt  that  plan  to 
be  just,  proper,  and  reasonable.  They  did 
strike  on  the  full  work  and  half-pay  proposi- 
tion, because  it  was  unjust  and  illogical. 

Eventually,  but  slowly,  this  idea  led  to  the 
system  of  contracts. 


LECTURE  II 

CONTRACTS   WITH    UNIONS 

The  principles  laid  down  in  the  last  lecture, 
considered  calmly  by  both  sides,  led  to  the 
natural  conclusion  that  capital  and  labor  must 
recognize  their  inter-dependence,  and  that 
only  by  an  equal  protection  of  interests  could 
be  maintained  that  smooth  working  which  is 
essential  to  the  prosperity  of  all. 

The  so-called  system  of  piece-work  (where- 
by each  laborer  received  pay  according  to  the 
amount  of  work  done)  had  long  been  some- 
what in  vogue,  and  was  eminently  satisfactory 
to  the  best  and  most  skillful  workers.  Of 
course  the  idle  and  incompetent  always  pre- 
ferred wages  by  the  hour,  but  even  piece-work 
pay,  although  more  equitable,  did  not  prevent 
fluctuations  in  rates,  and  consequent  strikes. 
The  old  principle  persisted  of  making  the 
worker  a  partner  as  soon  as  the  business  was 

(25) 


26  Toil    and    Self 

poor,  and  in  order  to  avoid,  if  possible,  the  re- 
currence of  strikes,  the  contract  system  was 
devised.  By  this  plan  a  formal,  legal  contract 
was  entered  into,  by  which  a  certain  number 
of  men  collectively  and  individually  bound 
themselves  to  perform  certain  duties,  and  the 
employers  in  like  manner  bound  themselves 
to  retain  the  men  during  the  term  of  contract 
on  the  conditions  and  wages  agreed  to.  The 
responsibility  of  the  employers  was  a  sufficient 
guarantee  of  the  performance  of  their  obliga- 
tion, but  the  men,  having  no  such  responsibil- 
ity, were  called  on  to  deposit  10  or  15  per  cent 
of  their  wages  per  month  as  a  pledge  of  good 
faith,  to  be  forfeited  in  case  of  violation  of  their 
contract,  the  most  important  feature  of  which 
was  that  they  should  not  strike. 

They  received  interest  on  the  amount  thus 
held  back,  either  through  its  investment  in  a 
savings  bank  or  trust  company,  or  directly  from 
the  employers,  who  used  it  in  the  business.  In 
most  cases  the  deduction  was  limited  to  a 
maximum  of  two  months' wages,  so  that  on  the 
average  the  total  deposit  was  reached  in  one 


Toil    and    Self  27 

and  a  half  to  two  years.  In  this  wise  the 
longer  the  men  had  been  in  service,  up  to  the 
maximum,  the  greater  was  the  amount  which 
they  could  forfeit  by  strikes  or  any  misde- 
meanor, so  that  usually  only  new  and  inex- 
perienced hands,  who  had  little  to  lose,  broke 
their  contracts  by  desertion.  The  contracts 
were  subject  to  modification  only  at  the  expi- 
ration of  the  time  limit,  and  in  the  event  of 
bankruptcy  of  the  firm  all  retained  back-pay 
became  a  prior  lien,  and  preferred  claim.  The 
forms  of  these  contracts  varied,  but  all  were 
based  on  this  general  plan. 

When  the  funds  were  in  the  hands  of  a 
trust  company  they  were  deposited  in  the 
names  of  a  committee  of  the  workmen  and  of 
the  employers  in  equal  number.  When  the 
money  was  used  in  the  business  of  the  firm 
it  was  subject  to  withdrawal  on  proper  notice, 
and  to  transfer  to  some  bank  or  trust  com- 
pany, under  the  direction  of  a  small  and  equal 
committee  of  workmen  and  members  of  the 
firm,  with  the  addition  of  one  or  more  outside 
business  men  chosen  by  vote  of  both  sides. 


28  Toil    and    Self 

Employers  merely  paid  a  fixed  rate  of  interest. 
In  the  beginning  the  workmen  chose  the 
greater  security  of  the  trust  company,  but  as 
they  received  higher  interest  when  the  money 
was  used  by  the  employers,  they  preferred  that 
plan. 

In  some  cases  the  "forfeit  fund,"  as  it  was 
called,  actually  entered  into  the  business  and 
took  its  profit  and  loss.  The  introduction  of 
this  idea  had  long  been  aimed  at  by  the  more 
ambitious  and  thinking  men,  and  as  its  first 
general  adoption  accidentally  came  in  an  era 
of  prosperity,  it  was  eagerly  accepted  by  the 
workmen,  as  promising  a  happy  solution  of  all 
difficulties,  and  was  agreed  to  by  many  cap- 
italists and  corporations.  It  was  soon  found, 
however,  that  this  plan  involved  the  men  in 
legal  complications,  on  the  plea  of  their  being 
special  partners;  and  in  case  of  bankruptcy 
proceedings,  they  found  that  they  could  not 
claim  any  prior  lien  as  easily  and  surely  as  they 
could  when  the  amount  was  actually  wages 
due.  The  fixed  interest  plan  therefore  proved 
to  be  the  more  satisfactory  one. 


Toil    and    Self  29 

Like  all  reform  experiments,  this  system 
was  first  put  into  practice  on  a  small  scale. 
The  vital  law  of  selfishness  in  some  cases  be- 
came dominated  by  the  less  vital  law  of  policy, 
and  in  a  slight  degree  by  the  dictates  of  phil- 
anthropy, especially  among  capitalists  who 
were  accustomed  to  deal  directly  with  their 
employes.  The  peace  and  security  obtained 
by  these  pioneers  at  once  led  others  to  adopt 
the  scheme  purely  as  a  matter  of  policy.  The 
freedom  from  strikes  meant  much  to  the  man- 
agers of  a  large  business,  as  it  enabled  them 
to  enter  upon  contracts  with  the  certainty  of 
fulfilling  them,  and  to  plan  their  operations  for 
six  months  or  a  year,  without  the  disastrous 
effects  of  a  sudden  stoppage  of  work. 

In  many  cases  excellent  laborers  were  not 
in  a  position  to  have  any  money  deducted  from 
their  salary,  and  the  labor  organization  began 
to  supply  the  funds  required  as  the  men's 
guarantee,  so  that  in  a  very  short  time  the 
labor  unions  found  so  many  advantages  to  be 
gained  by  taking  these  contracts  entirely  into 
their  own  hands  that  they  became  labor  con- 


30  Toil    and    Self 

tractors,  and  thus  soon  controlled  the  situa- 
tion. 

Dealing  with  a  unit,  instead  of  with  a  num- 
ber of  individuals,  greatly  simplified  the  work- 
ing details,  and  the  employers  were  glad  to 
accept  that  method,  though  it  contained  .the 
menace  of  trouble  through  the  growth  of  the 
labor  unions,  both  in  number  and  in  strength. 
The  unions  used  it  as  an  argument  to  force 
into  their  ranks  the  outsiders  who,  without 
money  or  organization,  were  more  than  ever 
at  the  mercy  of  these  societies.  In  this  man- 
ner the  unions  became  employment  bureaus 
on  a  large  scale.  A  non-union  laborer  had 
small  chance  of  getting  work  anywhere,  and 
except  in  the  smaller  trades  was  "frozen  out/' 
The  union  advanced  the  guarantee  fund  as  a 
whole,  received  the  entire  interest  on  it,  and 
distributed  it  pro  rata  among  its  members,  or 
in  some  instances  held  it  for  use  in  the  estab- 
lishment of  co-operative  stores,  or  for  invest- 
ment in  houses  to  be  rented  to  members  at  re- 
duced rates.  Successful  experiments  in  this 
co-operative  distribution  had  been  tried  in  the 


Toil    and    Self  31 

nineteenth  century  but  became  a  far  more  im- 
portant feature  of  labor-union  work  during  the 
twentieth  century.  The  system  produced  one 
admirable  result.  The  list  of  unemployed  was 
reduced  to  the  minimum,  for  various  trade- 
unions  in  all  the  states  were  in  such  close  cor- 
respondence, that  no  matter  where  there  was 
a  demand  for  labor  in  any  line,  the  proper  men 
were  immediately  furnished.  When  transpor- 
tation from  one  State  to  another  was  neces- 
sary, the  union  advanced  the  car  fare,  and  was 
reimbursed  directly  from  the  employer  by  in- 
stalments from  the  men's  wages.  As  before 
stated,  this  minimized  the  number  of  the  un- 
employed, although  it  naturally  could  not 
wholly  solve  the  problem.  Naught  save  an 
equation  between  the  labor  required  and  the 
amount  of  labor  in  the  market,  or  a  surplus  of 
work,  could  ever  abrogate  the  existence  of  the 
unemployed. 

All  the  writers  on  this  subject  have  subdi- 
vided laborers  into  three  great  classes :  First, 
those  who  persistently  find  work;  second, 
those  who  are  willing  to  work,  but  temporarily 


32  Toil    and    Self 

cannot,  either  through  disability,  or  through 
absence  of  demand  for  their  labor ;  and  third, 
the  vicious  and  the  lazy,  who  cannot  under  any 
pressure  or  influence  be  made  to  work.  Un- 
der the  contract  system,  the  unions  reached 
great  power,  and  conducted  their  affairs  with 
much  wisdom.  Large  shops  and  warehouses 
were  organized,  where  supplies  of  every  kind 
were  bought  in  bulk,  and  retailed  at  an  ad- 
vance just  sufficient  to  cover  expenses  plus  a 
small  percentage.  When  well  managed,  there 
was  frequently  some  profit  on  the  capital  in- 
vested, and  as  fast  as  members  had  paid  into 
the  union  their  full  guarantee  and  an  addi- 
tional union  fee,  they  were  credited  with  an 
interest  as  shareholders,  and  were  entitled  to 
vote  upon  the  disposition  of  the  fund.  As  a 
rule,  it  was  invested  in  new  co-operative 
schemes,  but  occasionally  it  was  added  to  the 
guarantee  fund  loaned  to  the  capitalists. 
Whenever  the  personal  skill  or  care  or  artistic 
quality  of  the  workman  added  to  the  value  of 
the  product,  profit-sharing  was  advantageous 
both  to  employer  and  employed,  and  became 


Toil    and    Self  33 

widespread ;  but  in  manufactures  where  ma- 
chinery was  the  main  factor  there  was  much 
less  inducement  to  the  employer  to  share  prof- 
its, and  where  no  contract  existed  it  was  done 
in  many  cases  merely  as  a  concession  to  avoid 
strikes,  and  applied  only  to  a  small  percentage 
of  dividend.  Among  thrifty  workmen  the 
sharing  of  profits  encouraged  the  acquisition 
of  land  and  a  house,  the  addition  of  many  com- 
forts to  their  lives,  and  also  better  opportuni- 
ties for  their  children,  but  through  the  over- 
confidence  which  this  improvement  produced, 
there  often  arose  a  ruinoys  ambition  to  out- 
shine their  fellows  socially  and  otherwise.  The 
inclination  to  expand  their  scale  and  style  of 
living  as  fast  as  increased  income  permitted 
seemed  well-nigh  universal  and  was  the  cause 
of  ruin  to  many  an  honest  wage-earner.  There 
was  also  a  very  natural  inclination  to  educate 
their  children  in  the  lighter  accomplishments, 
without  looking  to  their  thorough  training  for 
occupations  on  which  they  might  depend  for 
livelihood.  This  higher  education  often  cre- 
ated in  the  children  a  false  pride  and  a  false 


34  Toil    and    Self 

sense  of  superiority  that  unfitted  them  for 
what  they  really  could  do,  or  might  have  done. 
The  contract  system  worked  smoothly  for 
a  long  period  of  years,  and  its  process  of  dis- 
integration was  extremely  slow.  In  very  many 
cases  the  funds  in  the  hands  of  the  working- 
men's  committees  were  knowingly  squan- 
dered, or  lost  through  incompetency.  In  fact 
one  of  the  most  serious  troubles  of  the  work- 
ingmen  was  to  find  men  who  were  both  honest 
and  intelligent  who  would  be  the  custodians 
of  their  interests.  It  came  to  be  almost  a  by- 
word that  the  clever  men  could  not  be  trusted, 
» 

and  that  the  trustworthy  were  not  shrewd 
enough.  Again  the  great  success  of  many  of 
these  profit-sharing  ventures  was  one  of  the 
ultimate  causes  which  led  to  the  abandonment 
of  the  contract  system,  for,  finding  the  profit 
often  greater  by  far  than  the  interest  offered 
by  business  managers,  the  unions  began  to  de- 
mand exorbitant  rates  of  interest  in  the  shape 
of  profit-sharing.  The  careful  observer  saw 
that  profit-sharing  had  taken  on  the  shape  of 


Toil    and    Self  35 

its  alleged  enemy,  and  become  capitalism  in 
miniature. 

There  was  one  serious  inherent  weakness  in 
the  contract  system  which  was  appreciated  by 
both  sides,  namely,  the  illogical  idea  of  the 
absolute  equality  of  value  in  every  workman  of 
a  given  class.  The  unions  fought  hard  to  es- 
tablish this  principle,  but  the  sense  of  justice 
among  both  employers  and  employed  worked 
strongly  against  them.  On  the  other  hand  the 
highly  skilled  workmen  were  always  in  the 
minority,  and  were  consequently  outvoted  by 
the  less  skilled.  They  stood  in  this  respect 
just  about  where  the  capitalist  does  at  the 
polls. 

While  employers  accepted  this  theory  to  all 
outward  appearance,  they  invariably  managed 
to  avoid  its  practical  results,  and  the  skilled 
men,  under  the  eternal  law  of  selfishness,  look- 
ing to  individual  advancement  rather  than  to  the 
good  of  the  entire  class,  were  active  in  break- 
ing down  the  practice  of  equal  pay  for  each  and 
every  workman  in  the  same  branch  of  indus- 
try. After  awhile,  in  every  trade,  labor  became 


36  Toil    and    Self 

more  delicately  graded  as  to  the  capacity  of 
each  individual,  and  eventually  the  best  labor- 
ers in  each  separate  class  obtained  the  highest 
wages.  But,  meantime,  discontent  among  the 
mechanics  increased  steadily.  The  poorer 
workmen  being  poorly  paid,  rebelled  at  losing 
the  right  to  make  all  hands  strike  for  higher 
wages  in  prosperous  times,  and  on  the  other 
hand,  the  ambitious,  progressive  and  skilled 
workmen  were  always  restless,  because  they 
felt  the  dead-weight  they  had  to  overcome  in 
the  low  wage  scale  caused  by  lazy,  stupid  or 
vicious  co-laborers.  Nor  had  they  fully  ap- 
preciated that  all  adjustment  of  profit-sharing 
as  of  wages,  must  be  purely  a  matter  of  agree- 
ment, and  that  capitalists,  on  a  falling  market, 
would  not  continue  paying  even  the  same 
wages  any  more  willingly  than  under  the  old 
regime,  and  that  when  the  contract  term  end- 
ed, a  new  and  lower  adjustment  was  necessary 
if  the  purchasing  power  of  the  dollar  was  more. 
The  unions,  however,  threw  their  influence  in 
favor  of  the  sysfem,  because  it  gave  them 
more  power  through  offering  the  men  more  in 


Toil  'and    Self  37 

general  wages.  I  have  pointed  out  that  these 
contracts  were  at  first  for  short  periods  of 
time,  but  in  the  first  flush  of  success  the  limit 
was  much  lengthened,  and  this  proved  a  mis- 
take, for  when  new  conditions  arose,  causing 
either  side  to  seek  to  evade  its  pledges,  there 
were  found  many  new  loopholes  by  which  to 
escape. 

At  the  same  time  many  of  the  unions  had  ac- 
quired so  much  power  as  to  be  almost  on  an 
equal  footing  with  employers  in  dictation  of 
terms.  Many  serious  questions  arose  regard- 
ing the  violation  of  contracts,  and  strikes  were 
again  threatened  on  a  larger  scale  than  ever 
before.  Meanwhile  the  labor  leaders  had 
learned  the  value  and  the  power  of  combina- 
tions, and  therefore  had  organized  their  men 
on  military  principles,  stocked  their  ware- 
houses with  supplies,  extended  their  lines  in 
all  directions,  kept  their  men  well  under  the 
control  of  trained  leaders,  and  were  so  fully 
prepared  to  utilize  their  funds  for  fighting  that 
there  seemed  to  be  an  alarming  conflict  im- 
pending. 


LECTURE  III 
A 

CO-OPERATION 

The  twentieth  century  in  the  United  States 
witnessed  the  evolution  of  two  totally  different 
plans.  The  Eastern  States,  broadly  speaking, 
developed  the  effort  to  bring  capital  and  labor 
together  discreetly  and  peacefully,  while  the 
keynote  of  most  Western  effort  was  the  coer- 
cion of  capital.  Eastern  employers  had  grown 
restless  under  the  contract  system.  They  en- 
joyed immunity  from  strikes,  and  preferred  the 
ease  of  dealing  with  a  large  body  to  the  old- 
time  continual  friction  with  individuals,  but 
they  were  inwardly  rebellious  at  the  idea  that 
the  profit-sharing  schemes  all  provided  for  div- 
idends out  of  the  employers'  profits,  and  kept 
the  men  free  from  responsibility  in  case  of 
loss,  which  was  a  complete  reversal  of  the  ear- 
lier principle  of  lowering  wages  at  the  first 
sign  of  loss. 

(39) 


40  Toil    and    Self 

To  avoid  this  result,  therefore,  and  as  a  thor- 
oughly logical  plan,  strict  co-operation  began 
to  be  inaugurated.  The  men  became,  accord- 
ing to  their  wage,  pro  rata  partners,  in  the 
profits  and  the  losses.  The  contract  system 
had  been  for  them  such  an  advance  beyond  the 
old  individual  arrangement,  that  they  felt  the 
co-operation  plan  to  be  a  step  further  in  the 
same  direction,  and  were  inclined  to  hail  its 
inauguration  with  joy. 

In  fact  during  all  the  early  attrition  of  cap- 
ital and  labor,  the  idea  of  co-operation  was  the 
one  which  steadily  gained  ground.  In  the  be- 
ginning of  the  twentieth  century  about  one 
firm  or  corporation  in  five  thousand  had 
adopted  this  plan  in  one  form  or  another,  but 
by  the  year  1950  at  least  15  per  cent,  and  in 
some  communities  40  per  cent,  had  organized 
that  way.  Under  this  system  earnings  were 
cumulative,  and  wages  slightly  increased  ac- 
cording to  duration  of  service,  but  as  the  divi- 
dend from  co-operation  might  be  considerable, 
the  actual  wage  was  kept  down  to  the  lowest 
possible  level. 


Toil    and    Self  41 

In  very  dull  times,  naturally,  some  hands 
were  discharged  and  the  best  ones  retained. 
This    discharge  not  only    cut  off  the    man's 
wages,  but  forced  him  to  start  in  again,  if  he  \ 
returned  to  the  same  or  any  other  shop,  at  i 
the  foot  of  the  ladder,  while  the  better  worker, 
who  had  been  steadily  employed,  was  obtain- 
ing the  fuller  reward  of  uninterrupted  labor. 

It  was  therefore  the  influence  of  the  better 
workmen  which  supported  the  movement  and 
impelled  the  more  inefficient  to  improve,  or 
to  lose  their  opportunities.  The  principle  gen- 
erally followed  was  the  distribution  of  an  un-^ 
equal  percentage  of  the  profits  to  capital,  and 
to  skilled  and  common  labor,  after  deducting 
cost  and  a  fixed  interest  on  the  capital  in- 
vested. Wages  and  the  salaries  for  manage- 
ment were  regarded  as  expenses  of  operation. 
When  manager  and  capitalist  were  one  and 
the  same  person,  he,  of  course,  received  inter- 
est and  dividend  on  capital  as  well  as  salary 
and  its  dividend.  As  manager  on  a  salary  he 
received  simply  a  higher  percentage  than  the 
workmen,  due  to  his  superior  skill. 


42  Toil    and    Self 

In  some  instances  the  percentage  was 
awarded  in  the  precise  proportion  of  the 
capital  to  the  pay-roll,  and  in  others,  ac- 
cording to  the  relative  amounts  of  wages  and 
of  salaries.  These  amounts  paid  to  the  work- 
men varied  all  the  way  from  i  to  15  per 
cent.  An  average  distribution  of  the  profits 
was  about  as  follows ;  60  per  cent  to  the 
capitalists,  and  40  per  cent  to  the  entire 
body  of  the  employed,  which  was  divided  in 
proportion  to  the  amount  of  salary  or  wages 
received.  The  methods  of  distribution  were 
likewise  variable,  the  usual  rule  in  the  United 
States  being  direct  cash  payment  to  the  em- 
ployes, while  in  Europe  the  more  common 
method  was  to  reserve  the  whole  dividend  to 
form  a  capital,  accumulating  compound  inter- 
est for  the  benefit  of  the  participants.  Many 
houses  combined  the  two  methods,  the  portion 
reserved  forming  a  pension  for  old  age,  only 
available  after  a  certain  period  of  service,  with 
the  principal  never  actually  paid  to  the  work- 
man, though  inherited  by  his  family  at  his  de- 
cease. The  most  advanced  form,  strictly  co- 


Toil    and    Self  43 

operative  in  effect,  was  the  obligatory  invest- 
ment of  the  dividends  in  shares  of  the  firm, 
whereby  the  workmen  realized  fully  the  dif- 
ference between  merely  producing  and  there- 
after selling  successfully.  There  were  compar- 
atively few  instances  of  these  wiser  methods, 
for  naturally  only  intelligent  workmen  would 
accept  such  terms,  but  they  often  availed  them- 
selves of  the  privilege  of  investing  in  the  stock 
of  a  prosperous  firm,  and  thus  becoming  them- 
selves capitalists,  soon  ceased  to  cry  out 
against  that  class.  Whatever  the  methods 
adopted,  the  effects  of  co-operation  were  im- 
mediate and  beneficial.  The  strikes  ceased  as 
if  by  enchantment,  for  the  workmen  now  be- 
came as  anxious  as  the  capitalist  to  preserve 
the  peace  which  tended  to  the  accumulation  of 
his  cherished  dividends.  He  felt  a  personal 
concern  in  the  success  of  the  business,  was 
keenly  alive  to  possible  improvements,  needed 
less  supervision  to  prevent  waste  and  careless 
methods,  and  was  jealously  anxious  that  new 
employes  should  be  competent.  This  in- 
creased efficiency  inured  to  the  employers' 


44  Toil    and    Self 

benefit  even  more  than  to  that  of  the  men. 
The  threatening  elements  in  the  trade-unions 
disappeared,  and  they  continued  to  exist  only 
for  the  social  and  practical  aims  of  promoting 
co-operative  stores,  libraries,  gymnasiums,  etc. 
In  the  midst  of  the  encouragement  existing 
during  the  prosperity  of  most  concerns  hav- 
ing a  co-operative  form,  the  unions  endeav- 
ored to  form  truly  co-operative  industries  with 
their  own  capital  in  which  none  but  workmen 
were  concerned,  but  they  failed  on  account 
of  the  unwillingness  of  the  men  to  pay  high 
salaries  for  executive  ability.  When,  however, 
the  system  was  once  fairly  established  among 
merchants  and  capitalists^  everyone  joined  in 
crying  "Eureka."  It  seemed  to  be  the  very 
keystone  which  they  had  been  seeking  to  give 
stability  to  their  somewhat  unstable  structure. 
They  learned  that  just  as  ownership  of  land 
means  good  citizenship,  so  the  true  way  of 
obtaining  the  best  workmanship  was  to  render 
,a  man  personally  and  financially  interested  in 
rthe  business  to  which  he  gave  his  skill.  For 
the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  world  the 


Toil    and    Self  45 

employer  had  appealed  to  the  selfish  instinct 
of  the  laborer.  Hitherto  the  laborer  had  had 
before  his  eyes  the  one  fixed  purpose  of  getting 
as  much  from  his  employer  as  possible — the 
two  interests  were  diverse  and  opposed — now 
they  were  united.  His  wage  was  fixed,  except 
as  the  business  greatly  prospered,  and  his  j 
every  thought  and  move  was  making  toward 
that  end.  Its  success  was  his  success.  Its 
increased  income  was  his  increased  income. 
The  old  maxim  that  the  owner's  foot  on  the  < 
soil  was  always  worth  an  increase  of  twenty 
per  cent  in  the  crop,  was  applicable  with 
double  force,  for  every  toiler  was  an  owner. 
Toil  aided  self — was  blended  with  it.  Appar- 
ently all  dual  interests,  as  far  as  they  could  be 
considered  opposing  interests,  were  ended, 
factional  spirit  had  died  out,  and  for  a  time  all 
went  well.  But  there  was  an  unattractive  re- 
verse to  this  medal,  and  it  was  soon  apparent. 
Ere  long  there  came  one  of  those  periodical 
trade  depressions,  such  as  recur  at  more  or  less 
regular  intervals,  and  its  influence  was  quickly 
felt  in  all  branches  of  industry.  Where  now 


46  Toil    and    Self 

were  the  bright  visions  of  the  reformers? 
Their  idol,  the  proletariat,  was  found  to  be  of 
common  clay.  The  workmen  had  been  glad 
enough  to  share  the  profits  which  prosperity 
had  brought,  but  they  ignored  the  fact  that 
dearth  is  well-nigh  the  logical  sequence  of 
plenty,  and  that  whosoever  shares  one  should 
not  refuse  to  taste  of  the  other. 

They  now  appreciated  that,  owing  to  bad 
trade  and  excessive  competition,  engendered 
by  a  long  period  of  prosperity,  there  were  no 
longer  any  profits  wherewith  to  continue  the 
previous  dividends,  and  that  the  surplus,  on 
which  the  manufacturer  should  draw  in  dull 
times,  had  been  divided  up  among  the  work- 
men, and  for  the  most  part  spent  as  soon  as  it 
was  received.  In  short,  it  left  no  surplus  on 
which  to  fall  back.  Capitalists  urged  that  as 
the  men  had  benefited  by  the  profits,  they 
ought  willingly  to  share  in  the  losses,  and  sub- 
mit to  an  assessment.  Since  under  the  old 
system  they  had  condemned  as  iniquitous  any 
reduction  of  wages  in  bad  times,  on  the  ground 
that  they  had  gained  nothing  by  the  profits  of 


Toil    and    Self  47 

good  times,  and  as  they  had  now  for  many 
years  been  sharing  in  the  profits,  they  ap- 
peared to  have  no  sound  reasons  to  oppose 
to  the  capitalists'  logical  deduction.  But  the 
eternal  law  of  selfishness  came  into  play,  and 
without  reason  they  positively  refused  to  ad- 
mit this  necessary  corollary  of  co-operation. 
Prosperity  had  made  them  forget  the  art  and 
habit  of  living  on  scant  wages,  and  they  loudly 
declared  that  unless  the  same  sums  as 
before  were  paid  to  them,  they  must 
starve.  The  inevitable  result  came.  Many 
firms  went  to  the  wall,  a  disastrous  panic 
followed  and  brought  endless  suffering 
among  the  ranks  of  labor.  In  some,  but 
in  very  few  cases,  the  men  considered  the 
matter  equivalent  to  an  old-time  strike,  paid 
their  assessment,  voluntarily  accepted  lower 
wages,  and  so  bridged  over  the  panic.  Bosses 
and  workmen  had,  however,  learned  their  les- 
sons. The  former,  that  partners  who  share  in 
the  profits  only  make  an  expensive. and  dan- 
gerous combination,  and  the  latter,  that  co- 
operation is  and  ought  to  be  two-sided.  Mean- 


48  Toil    and    Self 

while  the  men  had  gained  a  practical  insight 
I  into  the  trials  and  dangers  of  capital.  There- 
after every  invitation  of  the  bosses  to  make 
the  workmen  actual  partners  was  firmly  and 
promptly  declined. 

They  were  unwilling  again  to  assume  the 
manifold  risks  which  might  leave  them  desti- 
tute without  a  moment's  notice,  and  particu- 
larly in  communities  composed  largely  of  in- 
terlacing circles,  where  the  failure  of  one  firm 
might  cause  the  downfall  of  a  dozen  others, 
and  where  competition  and  all  the  attrition 
unavoidably  attendant  upon  trade  caused  the 
scale  of  profits  to  fluctuate  radically.  The 
panic  of  1972  practically  killed  co-operation, 
the  old  basis  of  bargain  relation  was  re-estab- 
lished between  capitalist  and  workmen,  and 
the  last  state  of  the  workmen  was  worse  than 
the  first.  Bosses  were  still  prompted  by  the 
bad  motives  of  human  nature,  and  inspired  in 
the  main  by  the  eternal  impulse  of  selfishness. 
The  experiment  had  failed,  which,  for  a  cen- 
tury or  rnore,  in  fact  since  its  first  promulga- 
tion, had  been  lauded  as  the  sure  panacea  for 


Toil    and    Self  49 

all  the  woes  of  the  workingman,  and  the  cer- 
tain solution  of  the  entire  labor  problem.  It 
had  failed  chiefly  because  the  self  of  the  cap- 
italist and  the  self  of  the  toiler  in  each  case 
had  not  been  the  only  pair  of  selves  between 
whom  an  equation  of  rights  and  interests  had 
to  be  established.  They  were  but  one  of  many 
pairs,  and  while  it  might  have  been  possible 
to  unite  the  interests  of  any  one  pair  so  that 
they  might  have  moved  on  smoothly  for  an  in- 
definite period,  the  law  of  self  came  into  action 
between  each  set  of  employers  and  men,  and 
each  other  set.  Every  firm  and  corporation 
was  looking  out  for  itself  keen-ly,  and  each  one 
was  ready  still,  provided  it  was  strong 
enough,  to  squeeze  the  life  out  of  its  competi- 
tor. As  a  corporation  is  said  to  have  no  soul, 
it  could  not  certainly  be  expected  to  possess 
such  delicate  motives  as  altruism,  'and  it  did 
not,  and  so  once  more  was  patient  laborious 
Toil  swallowed  up  by  Self. 


LECTURE   III 
B 

BALLOT   VICTORY 

While  the  East  had  been  working  out  the 
co-operative  experiment,  the  Western  la- 
borer had  been  striving  to  work  out  his  sal- 
vation on  other  lines,  and  had  been  closely 
watched  by  the  general  public.  During  all 
the  period  of  contract  and  industrial  partner- 
ship experiments  at  the  East,  the  strongly 
partisan  Western  labor  press  had  continually 
repeated:  "Those  are  but  makeshifts;  we 
must  have  something  broader  and  more 
radical.  Our  true  power  lies  in  the  ballot, 
and  controlling  that,  we  can  dictate  better 
terms." 

When  any  of  their  experiments  failed,  their 
arguments  were  thrown  into  varied  shapes, 
and,  Protean-like,  appeared  in  new  garb  with 
apparent  fresh  strength. 

The   Socialist   Labor  party,   which,   under 


52  Toil    and    Self 

the  names  of  Populists,  Grangers,  Farmers' 
Alliance,  the  Order  of  Iron,  the  Sons  of  Toil, 
etc.,  had  for  many  years  been  growing  in 
numbers,  sought  eagerly  to  fuse  all  these  ele- 
ments into  a  unit  of  power.  In  the  restless 
discontent  which  followed  the  collapse  of  any 
industrial  concern,  the  workmen  eagerly  lis- 
tened to  the  war-cry  of  "Down  with  capital," 
and  followed  the  banner  inscribed  "Vote  your- 
selves free." 

These  sentiments  sounded  well,  but  meant 
little. 

Their  leaders  and  their  newspapers  argued 
as  follows:  "Capital,  even  when  it  has  pre- 
tended to  be  your  friend,  has  always  held  be- 
hind its  back  the  whip-hand,  armed  with  the 
law,  and  you  have  been  cowed  by  it  many 
times.  But  that  day  is  past,  even  as  the  strike 
has  passed,  though  we  should  never  forget 
that  what  made  strikes  useful  9  was  the  fear 
they  inspired.  Use  your  ballots,  and  you  will 
not  only  down  capital  by  fear,  but  control  all 
the  machinery  of  the  law  in  your  own  behalf." 

The  Populists  had  long  striven  for  supreme 


Toil    and    Self  53 

power  in  Colorado,  Kansas  and  Texas,  where, 
with  varying  fortune,  they  had  organized  more 
completely  than  in  any  other  States. 

Being  more  hopeful  of  complete  success  in 
Colorado,  the  Labor  party  established  there 
the  headquarters  of  its  propaganda,  supported 
numbers  of  radical  newspapers,  sent  through 
the  State  its  most  brilliant  and  magnetic 
speakers,  and  perfected  such  an  organization 
that  the  whole  people  were  carried  away  by  a 
frenzy  of  enthusiasm.  The  party  won  an  over- 
whelming victory  at  the  polls,  controlling  both 
branches  of  the  Legislature  by  heavy  majori- 
ties, and  electing  as  Governor  a  creature  of 
their  own  making.  In  Texas  and  Kansas  they 
made  great  gains ;  the  Texas  Legislature  had  a 
good  majority  of  Socialist  members,  but  the 
Governor  was  strongly  anti-Socialist,  so  that 
their  hands  were  tied  until  accident  opened  the 
way  to  experiments  which  will  be  described 
later. 

Great  was  the  jubilation  among  wage- 
earners  over  their  success,  and  the  labor  press 
throughout  the  country  called  the  world  to 


54  Toil    and    Self 

witness  that  here  at  last  in  Colorado  had 
come  the  hour  and  the  men,  and  finally  the 
sure  means  of  proving  that  "government  of 
the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people",  was 
no  longer  an  empty  phrase,  but  a  glorious  po- 
litical possibility.  In  triumphant  and  undue 
haste  the  Legislature  enacted  sweeping  meas- 
ures in  the  interest  of  labor.  The  eight-hour 
clay  for  all  workmen,  except  on  railroads,  had 
long  been  legally  established,  but  had  been, 
practically  evaded  by  lower  wages  and  an 
overtime  arrangement.  It  was  now  made  so 
stringent  that  evasion  was  impossible,  and  a 
new  law  fixed  four  hours  on  Saturday  as  a 
working  day,  and  required  that  all  extra  time 
and  night  work  should  be  paid  for  at  three 
times  the  regular  rates  for  day  labor. 

The  employment  in  factories  of  children 
under  fifteen  years  of  age  was  prohibited,  and 
also  the  employment  of  women  in  any  occu- 
pation injurious  to  health.  Wherever  women 
were  employed,  the  law  stipulated  that  they  be 
paid  at  the  same  rate  as  men  for  the  same 
work,  and  all  employers  were  required  to  pay 


Toil    and    Self  55 

all  their  workmen  of  one  grade  the  same 
wage  up  to  the  highest  reasonable  limits, 
which  were  placed  so  that  on  the  average 
capital  should  not  earn  excessive  interest. 

The  system  of  convict  labor  contracts  was 
abolished,  and  by  the  establishment  of  a  Free 
Labor  Bureau,  the  State  virtually  pledged  it- 
self to  regulate  the  labor  market.  Any  stock 
company,  firm,  or  individual,  earning  more 
than  15  per  cent  on  the  capital  invested, 
was  forced  to  ^ay  half  the  surplus  to  the  State 
Board  of  Charities.  The  primary  function  of 
this  board  was  to  care  for  the  unemployed, 
working  in  conjunction  with  the  Labor  Bu- 
reau. Heavy  fines  were  imposed  on  any  em- 
ployer who  sought  directly  or  indirectly  to 
evade  these  laws. 

To  fulfill  the  tremendous  obligation  assumed 
in  providing  work  for  all  comers,  the  State 
undertook  extensive  road-building,  erection 
of  public  buildings,  and  irrigation  works  in  all 
directions.  The  local  authorities  took  entire 
control  of  street  railways,  electric  plants  of  all 
kinds,  water-works,  etc.,  canceling  the  con- 


56  Toil    and    Self 

tracts  with  private  owners,  and  paying  a  nomi- 
nal indemnity  on  the  ground  of  public  neces- 
sity. In  fact,  the  phrase  "In  the  name  of  the 
people"  became  the  popular  shibboleth  of  the 
day. 

In  many  towns  the  most  radical  reformers 
induced  the  authorities  to  undertake  to  supply 
ice  and  coal  at  cost  to  consumers,  and  for  this 
purpose  the  State  was  urged  to  assume  con- 
trol of  the  coal  mines  "in  the  name  of  the 
people".  The  Legislature  formally  made  an 
initiative  test  of  its  powers,  and  condemned 
one  mine  for  public  needs,  paying  to  its  own- 
ers on  a  State  appraisal  about  one-fourth  its 
value. 

From  the  moment  of  the  success  of  the 
Labor  party  in  the  State,  thousands  of  work- 
men from  other  States  had  poured  in,  and 
the  Legislature  was  at  once  compelled  to  pro- 
tect its  own  people.  A  heavy  head  tax  was 
consequently  imposed  on  every  one  moving 
into  the  State,  and  in  registering  at  the  labor 
bureaus  every  man  was  required  to  prove 


Toil    and    Self  57 

three  months'  residence  before  he  was  entitled 
to  a  place  on  the  rolls. 

Cases  were  brought  before  the  courts  ques- 
tioning the  constitutionality  of  the  head  tax, 
and  for  a  short  time  nearly  everything  else 
was  lost  sight  of  in  the  public  excitement  over 
this  question.  The  dominant  party  stood  for 
State  rights,  but  the  courts  were  not  so  com- 
pletely in  their  hands  as  to  decide  in  their 
favor,  and  in  spite  of  mass  meetings  and  in- 
cendiary agitation  leading  to  the  verge  of 
rebellion,  the  law  was  declared  unconstitu- 
tional. 

The  Labor  Bureau,  however,  was  clearly  a 
State  institution,  and  the  authorities  ruled  that 
the  limit  of  residence  under  which  a  man  was 
entitled  to  apply  to  it  for  work  should  be  at 
once  raised  to  six  months,  and  that  held  in 
check  a  portion  of  the  threatened  flood  of 
immigration. 

The  acts  of  condemnation  of  private  busi- 
ness property  involved  the  State  in  many  law- 
suits, though  the  State  constitution  expressly 
provided  that  "the  General  Assembly  shall 


58  Toil    and    Self 

have  power  to  alter,  revoke,  or  annul  any  char- 
ter of  incorporation,  whenever  in  their  opinion 
it  may  be  injurious  to  the  citizens  of  the  State, 
in  such  manner,  however,  that  no  injustice 
shall  be  done  to  the  corporation".  The  legal- 
ity of  the  act  was  sustained,  but  the  method 
was  held  to  work  great  injustice  to  corpora- 
tions, through  under-appraisals  by  the  State 
Committee. 

A  further  extension  of  State  control  was  at- 
tempted over  public  railroads  and  telegraphs 
existing  in  the  State,  even  though  owned  out- 
side of  the  State.  The  greater  part  of  such 
lines,  however,  held  national  or  other  State 
charters,  and  could  not  be  reached  by  Colo- 
rado laws,  except  in  the  way  of  restriction  of 
local  privileges. 

Very  strict  laws  were  passed  as  to  the  re- 
sponsibility of  railroad  and  other  companies 
for  the  lives  and  safety  of  employes,  and  when- 
ever an  accident  occurred  traceable  to  bad 
regulations  the  federated  Labor  Union  of  the 
State  prosecuted  the  case  vigorously  in  the 
courts. 


Toil    and    Self  59 

Such  extensive  undertakings  required  large 
revenues,  and  the  haste  with  which  all  the 
machinery  was  set  in  motion  threatened  to 
plunge  the  State  into  bankruptcy. 

Bonded  debt  at  a  rate  of  interest  sufficient 
to  float  it  successfully  was  forbidden  by  the 
constitution,  and  was  contrary  also  to  the 
avowed  principles  of  the  Labor  party.  For- 
tunately for  them  the  country  was  at  that  time 
unusually  prosperous,  the  very  high  inheri- 
tance tax  imposed  yielded  additional  revenue 
(though  eventually  it  tended  by  various  eva- 
sions such  as  ante-mortem  gift  and  other 
tricks  of  law  to  abolish  inherited  property), 
and  there  were  men  prominent  in  the  party 
so  eager  for  the  success  of  its  principles,  that 
they  privately  raised  funds  for  the  support 
of  the  labor  bureaus,  and  aided  the  State 
Board  of  Charities. 

Meanwhile  in  Texas  an  unexpected  change 
had  placed  the  Labor  party  in  full  control  of 
the  government.  By  the  death  of  the  Gov- 
ernor, the  Lieutenant-Governor  became  the 
head  of  the  State,  a  man  of  vacillating  opin- 


60  Toil    and    Self 

ion,  who  had  been  won  over  by  the  Socialist 
majority  during  his  presidency  of  the  State 
Senate.  Immediately  the  Legislature  entered 
upon  a  most  radical  programme,  not  only  (as 
in  Colorado)  seizing  upon  many  sources  of 
supply  "in  the  name  of  the  State",  but  fram- 
ing an  amendment  to  the  constitution  abolish- 
ing all  private  title  to  real  estate,  and  vesting 
all  such  titles  exclusively  in  the  State. 

This  amendment,  however,  required  a  vote 
of  the  people,  and  as  public  notice  of  such 
proposed  amendment  was  by  the  constitution 
made  compulsory  for  three  months  before  the 
time  fixed  by  the  Legislature  for  a  vote  to  be 
taken,  the  date  fell  so  near  the  day  of  the  regu- 
lar election  that  it  was  agreed  to  submit  the 
amendment  at  that  time.  The  impetus  of 
the  reforms  set  on  foot  was  still  felt,  and  the 
march  of  events  had  been  so  rapid  that  capi- 
talists had  had  no  chance  to  desert  the  Social- 
ist States  to  any  extent,  without  very  serious 
loss,  for  they  could  find  no  purchasers  for  their 
plants  or  interests,  and  were  therefore  com- 
pelled in  self-defense  to  continue. 


•     Toil    and    Self  61 

The  party  threw  itself  into  the  local  and 
the  national  campaign  with  intense  energy, 
counting  recruits  by  thousands  in  every  West- 
ern State,  and  in  smaller  numbers  through 
the  East  and  South.  The  conservative  and 
capitalist  classes  fought  with  equal  energy, 
and  the  country  blazed  with  excitement.  Colo- 
rado was  held  up  as  a  shining  example,  or 
an  awful  warning;  the  number  of  men  em- 
ployee} at  steady  wages  by  the  State  was  an- 
swered by  pointing  out  the  semi-paralysis  of 
all  private  industry,  and  the  impossibility  of 
raising  money  for  business  use  even  on  excel- 
lent collateral.  This  argument  the  Labor 
leaders  tried  to  meet  by  advancing  one  of 
their  strong  claims,  viz.:  a  State  currency 
authorized  by  constitutional  amendment. 
This  radical  position  was  condemned  by  many 
of  their  wiser  adherents,  and  lost  them*  many 
votes  when  the  decisive  moment  came.  The 
"commonwealth  land"  amendment  was  lost  in 
Texas,  and  the  Legislature  with  it. 

In  Colorado  the  State  was  held  by  a  re- 
duced majority,  while  there  was  elected  a 


62  Toil    and    Self 

large  but  not  controlling  number  of  Con- 
gressmen and  presidential  electors.  There 
was  evident  weakening  in  the  support  of  the 
party  and  the  whole  structure  was  tottering 
to  its  fall.  The  country  was  becoming  thor- 
oughly alarmed  by  the  growth  of  the  extreme 
Socialist  ideas,  and  Colorado  was  soon  carried 
down  to  its  ruin.  The  manufacturers,  utterly 
unable  to  work  as  cheaply  as  in  the  other 
States,  found  themselves  in  competition  with 
goods  ordered  from  outside,  so  that  they 
either  sold  out  at  a  sacrifice,  or,  where  the 
machinery  could  be  easily  moved,  took  their 
entire  plants  to  some  adjacent  State.  A  vain 
effort  to  remedy  this  evil  was  made  by  the 
Populist  Legislature,  which  passed  laws  to 
the  effect  that  the  products  of  other  States 
should  not  be  sold  within  the  limits  of  the 
State,  but  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  declared  such  laws  to  be  unconstitu- 
tional. Goods  came  in  as  before,  reaction  set 
in,  and  the  Labor  party  went  down.  This 
movement,  however,  came  too  late.  Every 
industry  in  the  State  had  been  crippled,  and 


Toil    and    Self  63 

nothing  but  agricultural  pursuits  could  be  fol- 
lowed. Many  thousands  thrown  out  of  em- 
ployment by  the  shutting  down  of  private  con- 
cerns could  not  be  provided  for  by  the  State 
and  were  in  great  want.  It  was  a  full  half 
century  before  the  State  regained  her  indus- 
tries. The  warning  of  this  utter  failure  pro- 
duced an  immediate  effect  in  the  States  where 
the  extreme  Labor  party  was  strong,  and  it 
greatly  modified  their  methods,  in  spite  of  the 
efforts  to  the  contrary  made  by  the  hotheads 
among  them.  At  the  first  opportunity  the 
people  deposed  them  from  power,  and  all  sim- 
ilar efforts  in  any  other  State  were  impossible. 
The  lesson  had  been  learned,  and  though  a 
few  of  the  rabid  type  still  claimed  that  the 
movement  was  too  local,  the  rank  and  file  of 
the  laboring  men  saw  that  if  extended  it 
would  lead  at  once  to  the  withdrawal  of  all 
foreign  capital  from  this  country,  and  the  mi- 
gration of  domestic  capital  to  other  lands. 
The  experiment  became  one  more  convincing 
argument  for  the  vital  interdependence  of 
capital  and  labor  and  for  the  profound  neces- 


64  Toil    and    Self 

sity  of  altruistic  good-will  between  them, 
which  may  be  thus  formulated : 

Although  self-advancement  and  selfishness 
must  govern  both,  yet  the  true  object  of  capi- 
tal and  labor  is  the  same,  namely,  to  work 
smoothly  as  an  equation  of  factors.  The  mo- 
ment either  party  by  self-seeking  disturbs  the 
balance,  friction  follows. 

The  problem  of  the  negro  in  America  was 
.also  one  which  had  caused  much  vexation  to 
the  community,  but  during  the  century  from 
1950  to  2050  it  was  solved  almost  by  accident. 
In  one  of  the  Southern  States,  through  party 
politics,  and  a  coalition  of  certain  whites  and 
negroes,  the  latter  obtained  the  passage  of 
a  bill  permitting  mixed  marriages,  and  allow- 
ing even  a  small  bounty  for  all  such  mar- 
riages. "The  pepper  and  salt  party",  as  it 
was  called,  managed  to  keep  in  power  for*  a 
number  of  years,  during  which  mixed  mar- 
riages were  the  rule  rather  than  the  excep- 
tion, and  it  was  a  full  century  before  the 
bounty  was  annulled.  Politicians,  and  even 
statesmen  high  in  power,  had,  however,  taken 


Toil    and    Self  65 

their  cue  from  the  experiment,  and  all  laws 
against  miscegenation,  as  it  was  called,  were 
soon  abrogated.  The  result  was  that  the 
number  of  pure-blooded  negroes  soon  became 
immensely  reduced,  and  after  four  genera- 
tions the  race  question  had  died  out  of  sight 
completely.  The  Indian  retained  in  a  certain 
degree  his  natural  condition  and  his  individu- 
ality, through  separation  from  the  white  race, 
for  several  centuries,  owing  to  the  geographi- 
cal isolation  which  the  law  allowed  him,  but 
by  1950  the  white  settlers  had  so  hemmed  in 
and  overrun  the  reservations  that  intermar- 
riage, against  which  there  was  no  law,  soon 
caused  the  entire  absorption  of  the  red  race. 
At  the  end  of  the  twentieth  century  no  large 
number  of  Indians  living  together  could  be 
found,  and  very  little  pure  Indian  blood  ex- 
isted anywhere. 

While  the  Labor  party  in  the  United  States 
thus  experienced  the  rise  and  fall  of  its  cher- 
ished hopes,  the  older  nations  advanced  slowly 
but  more  surely  in  the  same  direction.  By 
the  year  2000  the  map  of  Europe  showed  but 


66  Toil    and    Self 

four  governments  at  the  Jiead  of  four  Nations, 
(i)  Sclaves,  (2)  Teutons  (including  what  had 
previously  been  Holland,  Scandinavia,  Ger- 
many, Austria),  (3)  the  Latins  (including  what 
had  been  known  as  Italy,  France,  Switzerland, 
Belgium  and  the  Spanish  Peninsula),  and  (4) 
the  British  Federation.  The  year  2000  saw 
the  last  crowned  head,  and  in  fact  for  nearly 
half  a  century  before  that  date  the  power  of  the 
few  remaining  sovereigns  had  been  limited  to 
mere  formalities. 

In  a  general  way,  after  the  year  1850,  when- 
ever imperialism  or  monarchy  ran  against  an 
extra  heavy  stumbling-block,  it  was  thrown 
off  the  track,  and  immediately  fell  into  repub- 
licanism, and  this  tendency  after  1925  became 
so  manifest  that  monarchists  saw  the  useless- 
ness  of  trying  to  re-establish  monarchies,  and 
the  efforts  to  that  end  became  less  and  less 
pronounced  as  time  rolled  on. 

The  uncivilized  world  soon  after  the  year 
1900  passed  rapidly  through  many  changes. 
The  initial  cause  was  the  crying  necessity  of 
capital  to  find  investment  in  new  fields,  which 


Toil    and    Self  67 

resulted  in  the  establishment  of  the  Caucasian 
race  in  every  nook  and  corner  of  the  world, 
the  consequent  building  of  railways  and  the 
introduction  of  civilized  manners  and  laws. 

A  result  of  this  great  exodus,  chiefly  of 
Anglo-Saxons,  was  the  implanting  of  the 
English  tongue  in  thousands  of  places  from 
which  it  spread,  until  it  became  practically  the 
universal  language  of  commerce,  and  the  most 
widely  spoken  language  of  the  world. 

About  the  year  2000  some  African  rivers 
were  diverted,  and  in  fifty  years,  by  a  slow 
process,  the  great  desert  of  Sahara  was  con- 
verted into  an  inland  ocean,  which  resulted  in 
opening  up  the  entire  African  continent  to 
the  world  and  to  progress. 

Even  China,  which  was  the  last  nation  to 
abandon  conservatism,  had  been  whipped  into 
line  and  joined  the  great  march  of  progress, 
under  European  guidance  and  control,  mostly 
Russian. 

Strangely  enough  it  was  in  some  of  these 
ancient  nations  that  the  ideas  of  the  most  ad- 
vanced Idealists  and  Socialists  looking  toward 


68  Toil    and    Self 

governmental  interference  and  protection 
were  first  put  in  practice.  The  explanation 
of  this  apparent  paradox  was  that  Republican- 
ism had  led  up  rather  to  the  idea  of  personal 
rights  and  individual  autonomy,  but  when 
Absolutism  began  to  absorb  the  ideas  of  So- 
cialism, theories  which  had  been  slowly  formu- 
lated during  centuries  by  thinkers  in  free 
countries  were  adopted  instantly  by  absolute 
progressive  rulers,  whose  subjects  were  still 
blindly  obedient  to  the  power  of  the  sover- 
eign, and  whose  long  habits  of  allegiance 
caused  them  to  accept  meekly  laws  and  regu- 
lations which  could  have  been  imposed  on  a 
free  people  only  with  their  own  concurrence. 
Paternalism  found  few  obstacles  in  the  way 
of  government  control  of  productive  indus- 
tries, when  it  had  for  years  managed  tele- 
graphs, railroads,  and  all  municipal  light,  heat 
and  water  supplies. 

With  a  government  well  administered  these 
reforms  worked  so  admirably  as  to  turn  the 
tide  of  emigration,  and  draw  from  America 
some  of  her  people,  until  Europe  and  Asia 


Toil    and    Self  69 

were  forced  to  adopt  restrictive  measures.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  schemes  worked  badly  un- 
der a  weak  administration,  and  showed  to  the 
world  the  ever-repeated  fact  that  systems  are 
man-made,  not  men  system-made. 


LECTURE  IV 

COURT  OF  ARBITRATION 

I  have  reserved  for  a  separate  lecture  one 
of  the  many  features  of  the  exercise  of  power 
through  the  ballot  .by  the  proletariat,  which 
was  cotemporaneous  with  the  Populist  move- 
ment described  in  the  last  lecture.  This  was 
the  creation  of  true  Courts  of  Arbitration. 
This  term  has  been  in  use  for  well-nigh  two 
centuries,  and  Boards  of  Conciliation  dated 
still  further  back.  But  every  form  that  had 
been  tried  up  to  this  date  under  whatever 
name  rested  on  the  voluntary  submission  of 
disputes  to  a  board  which  was  also  a  semi- 
volunteer  body;  that  is,  composed  generally 
of  one  judge  nominated  by  the  employer,  one 
by  the  employed,  and  a  third  elected  by  those 
two,  or  failing  that,  appointed  by  the  Gov- 
ernor of  the  State.  This,  though  frequently  a 


72  Toil    and    Self 

State  Court  of  Arbitration,  was  in  effect  the 
same  thing  as  a  Board  of  Conciliation,  differ- 
ing only  in  the  power  that  created  it,  and  in 
both  cases  without  any  binding  compulsory 
or  legal  force. 

Such  courts  satisfied  neither  the  workmen 
nor  the  employers,  and  after  many  trials  were 
regarded  as  failures,  to  be  classed  with  the 
Guilds  and  Unions.  Though  organized  more 
perfectly  and  effectively  year  after  year,  these 
courts  still  had  no  legal  power  to  enforce  the 
rights  of  the  workmen. 

When  the  men  turned  to  the  ballot  for  re- 
lief, one  of  the  prominent  aims  set  before  them 
was  the  establishment  by  their  own  votes  of 
a  Workmen's  Court,  whose  decisions  should 
be  conclusive  and  binding.  The  power  of 
corporations,  which  went  on  steadily  increas- 
ing in  every  generation,  had  engendered  a 
kind  of  despair  in  all  but  the  stoutest  Social- 
ists, until  the  wave  of  frantic  energy,  described 
to  you  in  the  last  lecture,  lifted  the  multitude 
to  a  frenzy  of  enthusiasm  which,  as  you  have 


Toil    and    Self  73 

seen,  collapsed  rapidly  as  soon  as  the  climax 
had  been  reached.  The  more  dramatic  ele- 
ments of  the  Populist  triumph  were  conspic- 
uous in  Colorado,  Kansas  and  Texas,  but  at 
the  same  time,  and  in  States  not  entirely  un- 
der Populist  control,  the  Workmen's  Courts 
were  established.  Their  main  features  were 
these : 

1.  Three  judges  for  each  court  were  elected 
by  popular  vote,  for  a  term  of  ten  years. 

2.  The  jury  was  selected  from  a  special 
tale  of  men  not  directly  connected  with  the 
Business    in    dispute,   but   having   a   general 
knowledge  of  cognate  trades,  and  of  the  labor 
question. 

3.  During  the  progress  of  the  trial  the  rela- 
tions of  employers  and  employed  remained  in 
statu  quo. 

4.  Trials  were    required   to   be  as  speedy 
as  possible,  and  no  motions  for  delay  were 
granted  for  any  but  imperative  reasons. 

5.  The  representatives  of  the  laboring  class 
were  to  pay  no  costs  in  case  of  a  verdict  in 


74  Toil    and    Self 

their  favor,  and  bore  only  one-half  of  the  costs 
of  their  trial,  even  if  the  verdict  was  against 
them ;  the  other  half  being  borne  by  the  gen- 
eral fund,  which  was  created  by  small  assess- 
ments from  all  the  unions  of  the  country. 

6.  The  award  of  the  court  was  held  to  bind 
the  parties  concerned  for  one  year  absolutely. 
At  the  end  of  that  time,  if  it  was  deemed  sat- 
isfactory by  both    parties,  it  was    continued, 
sometimes    by    formal    contract,    more    fre- 
quently without  any  formality.     But  if  con- 
ditions had  changed,  or  the  verdict  worked 
unjustly,  an  appeal  could  be  taken  to  the  same 
court,  and  new  evidence  produced  showing 
the  effects  of  the  last  decision. 

7.  During   this    year,   which   was   one   of 
the  nature  of  an  enforced  contract,  neither 
side  could  sever  the  relations  with  the  other 
unless  for  some  flagrant  wrong.    At  the  close 
of  the  year,  thirty  days'  notice  was  still  re- 
quired before  an  employer  could  discharge  a 
man,  or  the  workman  quit  his  place. 

8.  No  appeal  could  be  taken  from  the  de- 


Toil    and    Self  75 

cisions  of  the  court,  except  to  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  for  errors  in  law. 

9.  Any  failure  to  conform  to  the  terms  of 
the  decision  was  punishable  as  contempt  of 
court,  and  the  penalty  divided,  one  half  being 
given  to  the  opposing  party,  the  other  to  the 
State  Board  of  Charities. 

There  were  added  to  these  general  principles 
common  to  all  such  courts,  provisions  as  to 
the  time  at  which  awards  should  go  into  ef- 
fect, sometimes  from  the  date  of  the  decision, 
and  sometimes  from  the  date  of  lodgment  of 
the  complaint,  and  in  case  the  decision  was 
against  the  workmen,  a  requirement  that  de- 
ductions from  their  wages  should  be  limited 
to  5  per  cent,  per  month  until  the  sum  due 
the  employers  should  be  made  up. 

In  the  Populist  States  it  was  taken  for 
granted  that  decisions  would  always  favor  the 
workman,  and  the  men  elected  were  naturally 
partial  to  the  labor  side.  But  the  responsi- 
bility being  a  grave  one,  and  the  whole  system 
on  trial,  the  first  courts  formed  were  remark- 


76  Toil    and    Self 

ably  just,  even  though  elected  by  the  Populist 
vote. 

For  example,  in  one  of  the  first  cases  de- 
cided in  a  Western  State,  the  question  arose 
as  to  the  right  of  the  employers  in  a  large 
concern  having  branches  all  over  the  State  to 
curtail  expenses  at  a  time  of  reduced  business, 
by  discharging  from  each  factory  a  number  of 
unskilled  workmen,  rather  than  cut  the  wages 
of  the  higher  grade  men.  The  State  Union 
of  that  trade  protested,  and  failing  in  that,  the 
case  was  taken  to  the  Workmen's  Court.  The 
employers  proved  that  they  must  either  close 
up  some  one  factory  utterly,  or  retrench  in 
all,  and  contended  that  they  were  at  liberty  to 
reduce  expenses  in  the  way  they  chose.  The 
Union  represented  that  to  throw  out  of  work 
in  all  the  large  towns  a  number  of  men  in- 
capable of  turning  to  some  other  work,  cre- 
ated a  burden  on  the  better  workmen  (who 
were  bound  through  the  Union  to  help  them), 
or  upon  the  public  at  large,  whereas  a  care- 
fully adjusted  reduction  in  every  grade,  with- 


Toil    and    Self  77 

out  discharging  any,  would  work  compara- 
tively little  hardship. 

They  claimed  that  the  employers  chose  the 
other  method  as  involving  less  trouble  to 
themselves.  The  court  held  with  the  Union 
side,  but  so  carefully  prescribed  the  details 
of  the  readjustment  as  to  satisfy  both  parties. 
But  as  soon  as  precedents  accumulated  the  de- 
cisions began  to  be  questioned,  and  the  argu- 
ments were  complicated.  Capitalists  chafed 
under  the  surveillance  that  the  existence  of 
such  courts  exercised  over  them,  but  so  long 
as  public  opinion  upheld  the  courts  they 
found  it  wiser  to  submit  to  the  decrees  with 
apparent  willingness. 

They  realized  also  that  the  expense  of  these 
trials  was  far  less  than  that  of  the  old-fash- 
ioned strikes,  in  which  their  losses  had  been 
sometimes  incalculable  through  the  "extreme 
difficulty  of  making  anyone  responsible  for 
much  of  the  loss  through  violence.  This  was 
equally  true  for  the  workmen,  and  the  decis- 
ions being  final  and  binding,  were  for  some 
time  accepted  with  far  better  grace  on  both 


78  Toil    and    Self 

sides  than  the  same  conditions  would  have 
been  as  the  result  of  private  agreement,  the 
inevitable  being  accepted  always  more  readily 
than  what  may  be  changed.  As  in  course  of 
time  the  weight  of  precedent  began  to  be  more 
strongly  on  the  side  of  the  workmen,  the  capi- 
talists use3  every  effort  to  adjust  disputes  by 
mutual  concessions,  rather  than  go  through 
a  trial  which  was  almost  sure  to  cost  them 
dearer  than  it  did  the  Unions.  In  other  words, 
they  were  always  looking  out  for  themselves. 

There  were  not  wanting  attempts  to  cor- 
rupt the  judges  by  the  private  bribery  of  rich 
corporations,  and  in  Missouri  one  judge  who 
was  suspected  of  having  accepted  money  in  the 
interest  of  a  wealthy  firm  was  forced  to  resign 
his  position  and  was  hounded  from  the  State. 

An  election  to  fill  the  vacancy  caused  such 
intense  feeling  that  violence  and  riot  seemed 
at  hand,  and  the  successful  candidate  was  so 
arrant  a  Socialist  that  the  firm,  whose  inter- 
ests had  been  seriously  affected  by  all  this, 
removed  to  another  State. 

Elsewhere   the   courts,   confident   in   their 


Toil    and    Self  79 

power,  abused  it  and  bore  so  hard  on  the  em- 
ployers that  several  concerns  abandoned  busi- 
ness, or  suspended  operations  for  a  time.  This 
brought  home  to  the  workmen  again  their  de- 
pendence on  capital,  and  while  it  embittered 
them,  they  saw  that  there  were  limits  which 
they  must  not  overstep. 

In  the  States  where  the  courts  were  in  force 

and  strictly  partisan  in  their  rulings,  capital- 

• 

ists  would  put  no  money  into  new  enterprises 
requiring  labor,  and  the  few  who  remained 
thus  found  it  easier  to  control  the  business. 
It  meant  more  for  them  and  less  for  the  work- 
men year  by  year,  for  there  was  one  thing  the 
courts  had  no  power  to  do,  and  that  was  to 
compel  employers  to  add  to  their  force  of 
workmen,  so  long  as  they  did  not  require  ex- 
tra labor  of  the  men  already  employed.  They 
began  to  elect  more  moderate  men  to  the 
judgeships,  and  occasionally  a  minor  capital- 
ist, and  ere  long  there  crept  in  a  better  chance 
Jor  the  money  power  quietly  to  gain  a  hold, 
which  it  was  not  slow  to  do. 

Finally  the  term  of  judges  was  generally  re- 


80  Toil    and    Self 

duced  to  six,  and  sometimes  to  four  years,  on 
the  supposition  that  the  certainty  of  long 
terms  made  them  more  likely  to  yield  to  the 
influence  of  whichever  side  they  were  inclined 
to  favor. 

At  length  in  one  State,  because  corruption 
through  bribery  became  flagrant,  in  another 
because  Socialistic  influence  became  too 
strong,  and  in  another  because  capital  was 
rapidly  deserting  on  account  of  the  Arbitra- 
tion Courts,  the  laws  creating  the  courts  were 
either  repealed  or  greatly  modified.  In  their 
amended  form,  as  you  know,  they  exist  at  the 
present  day  with  legal  status,  but  owing  their 
power  chiefly  to  the  public  demand  for  arbi- 
tration, and  a  willingness  to  accept  their  de- 
cisions as  the  most  convenient  and  practical 
of  avoiding  or  settling  disputes. 


LECTURE  V 

IDEALISM 

The  Idealist  party,  said  Professor  Winter, 
surviving  through  all  these  periods  of  strug- 
gle and  failure,  always  full  of  sympathy  for 
suffering  humanity,  and  enthusiastic  over 
every  scheme  for  elevating  the  world,  repre- 
sented the  most  enlightened  philanthropy  of 
each  succeeding  generation,  and  I  cannot  give 
you  any  better  insight  into  their  creed  and 
code  than  by  reading  a  letter  written  to  a 
friend  by  a  prominent  Idealist,  president  of 
a  large  society,  at  the  beginning  of  the  year 
2000.  The  writer  lived  in  New  York,  which, 
at  that  time  was  what  Chicago  is  at  present, 
the  metropolis  and  the  seat  of  all  great  move- 
ments and  reforms. 

He  plunges  at  once  into  the  subject  which 
lay  nearest  to  the  heart  of  every  earnest  Ideal- 
ist, and  says : 

6  (81) 


82  Toil    and    Self 

"The  commencement  of  a  new  century  nat- 
urally leads  one  to  review  the  years  which 
have  preceded,  and  to  weigh  the  good  and 
evil  they  have  brought,  in  order  to  see  if  we 
have  drawn  nearer  to  the  solution  of  the 
problems  which  incessantly  perplex  the  hu- 
man race.  For  more  than  a  century  we  have 
been  striving  for  the  establishment  of  our 
principles  and  theories,  and  some  of  our  re- 
forms have  been  tried ;  but  with  what  slender 
success !  In  fact,  we  are  forced  to  admit  that 
practically  we  have  failed.  Where  one  evil 
was  overcome  there  sprang  up  twenty  to  take 
its  place ;  and  whatever  legislation  has  ef- 
fected for  the  good  of  the  people  has  been 
combated  and  undermined  and  undone  by  the 
folly  and  wickedness  of  the  people  them- 
selves. There  is  no  law  beneficial  to  the 
masses  which  the  inherent  selfishness  of  the 
individual  does  not  incite  him  to  circumvent, 
provided  any  trifling  advantage  is  thereby 
obtained  by  him ;  and  it  has  not  taken  us  all 
these  years  to  learn  that  almost  every  such  law 
can  be  circumvented.  It  was  selfishness  on 


Toil    and    Self  83 

the  part  of  the  workman  which  caused  the 
failure  of  the  co-operative  plan  to  bring  about 
the  reforms  which  had  been  looked  for ;  and 
this  is  only  one  of  a  hundred  instances  where 
men  have  let  their  grasping  spirit  stand  in 
the.  way  of  their  future  prosperity.  The  indi- 
vidual is  never  ready  to  make  any  personal 
sacrifice  to  benefit  the  mass.  The  natural 
conclusion  reached  from  these  facts  is  that 
the  rottenness  of  the  body  social  will  never 
be  overcome  until  the  evils  of  human  nature 
are  rooted  out;  and  this  last  is  what  we  are 
now  striving  to  attain.  That  it  cannot  be  ac- 
complished with  the  older  generation  is  evi- 
dent ; — egotism  and  love  of  gain  are  traits  too 
firmly  implanted  in  men's  natures  to  be  erad- 
icated when  once  the  age  of  consciousness 
has  been  reached,  when  they  learn  and  imitate, 
and  when  the  budding  forces  ol  manhood 
make  them  more  intense.  What  we  propose 
to  effect  must  be  done  by  beginning  long  Be- 
fore mere  instincts  have  become  strengthened 
by  example,  or  by  the  reasoning  powers.  We 
must,  therefore,  try  the  plan  of  education 


84  Toil    and    Self 

which  was  so  successfully  carried  out  by  the 
Jesuits,  centuries  ago.  We  must  inoculate 
children  with  our  ideas  from  infancy,  and 
strive  to  supplant  selfishness  and  all  the  lower 
traits  by  nobler  ideas,  such  as  self-sacrifice, 
mutual  concession,  sympathy,  simplicity  of 
life  and  contentment.  Education  directed  to 
the  mind  alone  has  become  a  menace  to  so- 
ciety, because  it  produces  a  class  full  of  un- 
satisfied ambitions  and  without  true  self-re- 
spect, therefore  without  respect  for  others. 

"Theoretic  idealism  has  obtained  a  strong- 
hold and  has  spread  so  widely  among  peo- 
ple of  culture,  that  this  plan  will  be  readily 
carried  out  in  the  households  of  the  rich.  For 
the  poorer  classes  we  have  founded  establish- 
ments where  infants  may  be  brought  by  their 
parents,  and  left  until  their  character  is 
deemed  by  the  heads  of  the  institution  to  be 
sufficiently  formed  to  retain  these  first  impres- 
sions through  life.  Our  system  bids  fair  to 
prove  eminently  satisfactory. 

"People  without  means  are  glad  to  have  the 
burden  and  expense  of  their  children's  bring- 


Toil    and    Self  85 

ing  up  taken  from  them,  while  their  authority 
over  them  is  acknowledged,  and  our  numer- 
ous training-schools  are  full  to  overflowing; 
several  others  being  at  present  in  process  of 
erection.  Large  sums  have  been  donated  to- 
ward the  work  by  Idealists  of  wealth,  and  as, 
so  far,  every  reform  proposed  by  us  has  been 
at  least  carried  out  and  tested  (however 
meager  the  results  may  have  proved),  I  see 
no  reason  why  this  one,  which  is  the  greatest 
and  most  radical  of  all,  should  not  be  tried 
to  the  end. 

"Let  me  acquaint  you  with  our  specific  aims 
and  methods.  Our  chief  endeavor  is  the  pro- 
motion of  unselfishness.  By  this  we  do  not 
mean  those  spasmodic  bursts  of  heroism 
which  have  occasionally  inspired  men  to  noble 
actions,  but  a  reasoning,  logical,  and  above 
all,  continuous  sentiment,  which  shall  prompt 
men  to  follow  what  should  be  the  first  great 
law  of  life :  the  good  of  the  greatest  number 
without  reference  to  their  own  interests ;  and 
to  regard  themselves  as  mere  spokes  in  the 
great  wheel  of  society ;  all  moving  in  perfect 


86  Toil    and    Self 

accord,  and  tending  toward  one  goal — per- 
fection. 

"Every  device  has  been  employed  to  attain 
this  end.  Our  institutions  are  directed  by 
men  and  women  whose  merits  have  been 
tested  thoroughly.  Their  precepts  and  ex- 
ample are  to  influence  their  young  charges. 
It  is  our  purpose  to  allow  the  children  in- 
trusted to  us  to  remain  in  ignorance  of  the 
egoism  which  until  now  has  reigned  su- 
preme, so  that  no  conception  of  aught  but 
altruism  can  exist  in  their  minds;  we  propose 
to  combat  by  every  means  in  our  power  the 
atavism  or  natural  instinct,  whichever  you 
may  please  to  name  it,  which  sometimes  in- 
troduces the  hated  evil  into  the  minds  even 
of  these  carefully  guarded  children. 

"Nor  is  our  influence  exerted  only  for  the 
prevention  of  this  fault.  We  strive  to  teach 
such  virtues  as  are  conducive  to  the  peace 
and  prosperity  of  the  body  social,  and  the  pre- 
cepts of  that  morality  and  religious  truth 
which  have  superseded  dogma.  We  practice 
the  great  laws  and  truths  of  that  broad  and 


Toil    and    Self  87 

universal  faith  which  is  adapted  to  the  needs 
of  this  day  and  generation,  and  which,  being 
eclectic,  and  taken  from  the  precepts  of 
Buddha,  Plato,  Socrates,  Christ  and  Ma- 
homet, contains  whatever  of  all  their  teach- 
ings was  logical,  wise,  just  and  great. 

"Do  you  not  think,  my  dear  friend,  that  with 
these  noble  plans,  and  with  the  full  approba- 
tion and  assistance  of  the  world,  we  should  at 
last  attain  our  aims?  The  Socialist  branch 
will  of  course  aid  us.  They  appear  very  ar- 
dent, especially  over  the  free  education  of 
their  children.  Our  own  party  here  is  con- 
fident of  success,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that 
it  will  be  but  a  short  time  before  men  can 
be  said  to  be,  not  what  a  thinker  of  the  latter 
middle  ages  called  them,  'insane  angels',  but 
'angels  in  good  faith'.  Now,  however,  we 
find  it  very  difficult  to  impress  On  them  the 
principle  that  sacrifice  to  the  general  good  is 
in  reality  for  their  own  eventual  benefit." 

When  Professor  Winter  had  finished  read- 
ing this  letter,  he  asked  one  of  the  students  to 
pass  judgment  on  it. 


88  Toil    and    Self 

The  student  paused  a  moment  thoughtfully, 
and  said,  "Such  qualities  would  make  a  noble 
race  of  men,  but  was  not  the  writer  rather  an 
exception  and  such  as  the  mass  never  was, 
nor  could  be  ?" 

"Yes,"  the  lecturer  returned,  "the  world 
has  produced  such  men  at  occasional  inter- 
vals, and  as  a  result  of  their  lives  and  influ- 
ence there  have  been  long  periods  during 
which  higher  moral  standards  led  to  greater 
beneficence  on  the  part  of  those  in  power." 

These  Idealists  were  to  their  day  what  the 
Reformers  were  to  the  early  middle  ages,  or 
like  the  early  Christian  martyrs,  who  yielded 
up  all  they  held  most  dear  for  their  religion. 
These  men  sacrificed  all  temporal  interests 
to  the  establishment  of  the  principles  which 
they  held  necessary  to  the  world's  good. 
Their  religion  was  the  love  of  mankind. 
Buddha  and  Christ  were  the  first  great  expo- 
nents of  the  principle,  but  their  efforts  were 
directed  almost  exclusively  to  moral  elevation 
— and  it  was  not  until  the  end  of  the  nine- 


Toil    and    Self  89 

teenth  century  that  the  material  welfare  of  the 
poor  began  to  be  a  definite  objective  point, 
and  as  such,  the  cause  of  the  birth  of  many 
parties  and  societies  who  concocted  endless 
devices,  plans  and  schemes  for  its  attainment. 

The  mistake  of  all  these  reforms,  political 
and  philanthropic,  was  the  idea  that  any  ex- 
ternal remedy  could  cure  the  plague  spots  on 
the  body  social.  The  Idealists'  plan  of  educa- 
tion went  closer  to  the  seat  of  disease  than 
any  other  reform,  but  they  found  their  pur- 
pose too  often  defeated  by  the  poor  material 
given  to  them.  They  had  to  recognize  that  , 
to  have  well-born  children  was  half  the  battle 
in  character-building,  but  they  hopefully  be- 
lieved that  they  were  preparing  the  way  for 
future  generations  to  start  in  life  endowed 
with  better  instincts. 

The  earliest  names  connected  with  this  hu-v 
manitarian    movement,    recognized    as    such, ; 
were   Herbert   Spencer,   Tolstoi   and   Henry  ; 
George.     Many  other  writers  followed  them, 
but  with  the  buoyancy  of  the  enthusiast  they 


90  Toil    and    Self 

were  all  prone  to  expand  on  what  human  na- 
ture might,  could,  would,  or  should  be,  rather 
than  what  it  actually  was,  is,  and  ever  will  be. 
It  goes  without  saying  that  the  gentle,  con- 
siderate, right-minded  and  reasonable  man 
will  be  a  law-abiding  citizen  of  economical 
habits,  and  some  thought  for  the  future,  and 
it  is  begging  the  question  to  say  that  the 
evils  of  society  would  be  cured  if  men  were 
only  angels.  It  is  palpable  that  no  prisons 
are  needed  where  no  criminals  exist,  that  five 
poor-houses  out  of  six  could  be  shut  up  if 
all  men  were  thrifty  and  had  forethought,  but 
the  facts  are  that  human  nature  is  not  so  con- 
stituted, and  the  wise  man  takes  society  as  it 
is,  and  human  nature  as  it  has  been  made,  and 
works  out  the  problem  with  those  facts,  rather 
than  with  imaginary  and  hypothetical  ideas. 
Even  nature  has  recourse  to  the  clever- 
est possible-  deception  to  attain  her  ends. 
The  most  profoundly  unselfish  course  which 
a  man  can  pursue,  namely,  that  of  devoting 
his  entire  life  and  energies  and  resources  to 


Toil    and    Self  91 

the  care  of  his  wife  and  children,  are  wrapt 
up  primarily  in  a  motive  of  unalloyed  selfish- 
ness. He  is  giving  everything  he  has,  and 
yet  coupled  therewith  comes  a  certain  flattery 
to  his  powers  and  his  superior  earning  capac- 
ity and  protective  strength.  Ordinarily  these 
appeals  are  sufficient  to  make  him  devoted  to 
his  duties,  but  often  they  are  insufficient; 
when  we  come  to  analyze  that  insufficiency 
closely,  we  find  that  it  is  only  in  the  demands 
of  civilization  that  he  fails,  while  for  all  pur- 
poses that  nature  had  in  view,  the  allurement 
is  ampfe  for  the  fullest  execution  of  nature's 
ends  and  purposes. 

Another  peculiarity  with  the  Idealist  is  that 
experiment,  or  a  series  of  experiments,  never 
seem  to  convince  him  that  an  altruistic  Utopia 
is  impossible.  There  is  always  some  special 
reason  why  that  effort  failed,  and  there  are 
usually  many  reasons. 

It  was  not  begun  right,  or  not  continued 
long  enough,  or  else  the  body  of  men  with 
whom  it  was  tried  were  not  the  right  class, 


92  Toil    and    Self 

or  the  managers  were  unfit,  and  so  on.  It 
is  the  inherent  optimistic  nature  of  the  en- 
thusiast which  makes  him  the  blind  and  per-  • 
sistent  pursuer  of  his  ideal,  regardless  of  the 
logical  conclusions  which  contradict  his  the- 
ories, and  which  are  palpable  to  the  calm  ob- 
server. 


LECTURE  VI 

ALTRURIA 

At  the  sixth  meeting  of  the  class,  Professor 
Winter  appeared  with  a  bundle  of  letters  in 
his  hand.  He  seemed  impressed  with  some 
thought  or  incident  half  serious  and  half 
amusing,  for  he  smiled  genially  on  the  stu- 
dents as  he  wished  them  good-morning.  "I 
have  here  some  letters  which  will  not  fail  to 
interest  you,  gentlemen,"  he  said;  "for  al- 
though they  bear  reference  to  an  event  which 
occurred  long  since,  it  is  still  true,  as  was  de- 
clared centuries  ago,  that  'all  the  world  loves 
a  lover',  whether  he  be  a  contemporary  or  one 
who  lived  in  some  former  age." 

These  documents  which  I'  have  in  my  hand 
are  all  that  now  remains  of  an  idyl  which  lent 
a  halo  of  romance  to  the  efforts  of  the  Ideal- 
ists in  the  twenty-first  century.  They  were 
written  by  Helen  Maitland  and  Adrian  Stuy- 
(93) 


94  Toil    and    Self 

vesant,  and  have  been  in  the  possession  of 
Yale  College  for  many  decades. 

The  name  of  Stuyvesant  will  be  self-ex- 
planatory to  you,  and  it  suffices  to  say  that 
Adrian  Stuyvesant  was  the  heir  of  an  enor- 
mously rich  family  of  that  name.  The  history 
of  their  fortune  reads  like  a  fairy  tale.  Its 
accumulation  is  to  be  traced  back  to  the  be- 
ginning of  the  eighteenth  century,  when  the 
founder  of  the  house  emigrated  to  America. 
Once  here,  his  rise  was  phenomenal.  He 
traded  with  the  Indians,  and  what  money  he 
thereby  gained  was  invested  so  judiciously 
that  at  his  death  he  was  a  millionaire.  It  is  a 
curious  fact  connected  with  the  fortune  that 
it  set  at  naught  all  preconceived  theories. 
Writers  on  finance  had  affirmed  that  in 
America  no  fortune,  fto  matter  how  colossal, 
could  hold  together  through  three  genera- 
tions, or  four  at  the  outside.  It  became  a 
household  phrase,  but  the  Stuyvesant  fortune 
not  only  outlasted  three,  but  thirteen  genera- 
tions, and,  as  you  know,  still  exists.  Its  pos- 
sessors were,  for  the  most  part,  shrewd  and 


Toil    and    Self  95 

intelligent  men,  and  even  had  they  not  been, 
the  peculiar  methods  of  investment  which 
were  a  family  tradition  with  each  heir  had 
thus  far  secured  them  against  loss,  so  that 
when,  through  the  death  of  some  minor  col- 
lateral heirs,  it  became  united  under  Adrian 
Stuyvesant,  its  proportions  were  already  fabu- 
lous, and  numbered  close  to  a  billion  dollars. 
Adrian  was,  moreover,  a  man  of  wide  educa- 
tion and  much  refinement;  and  an  earnest 
partisan  of  the  Idealists,  with  whose  theories 
he  had  been  imbued  during  his  childhood  by 
a  tutor  who  was  in  ardent  sympathy  with  the 
system  of  education  which  has  already  been 
described.  Intermarriage  with  the  best  fam- 
ilies had  supplied  their  own  with  fresh  blood 
and  new  life,  and  Adrian  might  have  taken 
his  choice  of  the  highest-born  women  in  the 
world  for  his  wife,  had  he  so  desired.  But  his 
choice  fell  on  a  woman  whose  social  position 
was  inferior  to  his  own.  Helen  Maitland  was 
the  daughter  of  the  leader  of  the  Idealists,  and 
herself  an  Idealist  by  sympathy  and  by  con- 
viction. She  was  a  woman  of  twenty-five 


96  Toil    and    Self 

when  Adrian  met  her,  so  that  the  event  which 
I  am  about  to  relate  to  you  was  not  the  un- 
reasoning impulse  of  a  wayward  child,  but 
the  result  of  mature  thought  and  study. 

Helen  Maitland  was  above  all  an  earnest 
woman,  and  her  earnestness  was  irresistibly 
fervid  and  magnetic.  She  was  philanthropic 
in  the  rigorous  derivative  sense  of  the  word 
and  loved  mankind;  nor  was  this  love  with 
her  of  the  abstract  quality  which  may  be  pro- 
claimed but  not  tested,  for  it  seemed  to  mani- 
fest itself  by  deeds  of  benevolence  almost 
without  her  volition. 

From  the  moment  that  Adrian  and  Helen 
met,  she  determined  to  win  him  from  mere 
theoretic  sympathy  to  the  practical  support 
of  the  Idealist  cause,  and  in  so  doing,  her 
stronger  nature  took  possession  of  his,  and 
moulded  it  to  her  will.  In  one  of  her  letters, 
about  this  time,  she  wrote  to  him  as  follows : 

"Has  it  occurred  to  you  that  the  systems 
of  national  reform  which  have,  in  the  course 
of  the  world's  history,  been  suggested  from 
time  to  time,  and  which  have  been  sneered  at 


Toil    and    Self  97 

as  'Utopian'  and  impracticable,  have  been 
condemned  without  a  trial?  Limited  re- 
forms have  been  attempted,  it  is  true,  but  I 
am  obstinate  enough  to  maintain,  with  the 
so-called  'dreamers',  that  no  reform  can  be 
effective  which  does  not  strike  at  the  root  of 
the  existing  evils  of  government ;  and  at  the 
promoter  of  these  evils,  money.  You  have 
heard  this  theory  broached  many  times,  but 
you  know  that  it  has  never  been  put  into  exe- 
cution. I  am  going  boldly  to  put  before  you, 
without  further  preamble,  one  of  my  long- 
cherished  ideas,  which  you  have  it  in  your 
power  to  carry  out.  You  are  rich,  and  there- 
fore all-powerful  to  found  a  city  where  an 
entirely  new  system  of  government  shall 
exist.  To  do  this,  you  must  secure  a  grant 
of  land,  or  buy  it  and  obtain  such  authority 
from  the  United  States  as  to  make  you  wholly 
independent.  Even  this  would  be  scarcely 
radical  enough.  I  should  advise  you,  there- 
fore, to  buy  one  or  more  islands  in  the  Pa- 
cific Ocean,  or  where  you  can,  and  to  found 


98  Toil    and    Self 

there  a  nation.  You  will  be  laughed  at,  but 
you  will  find  recruits. 

"What  has  always  seemed  incomprehensi- 
ble to  me,  is  the  repugnance  which  moderns 
feel  for  innovations.  Notwithstanding  the 
startling  and  partly  successful  ventures  which 
have  in  every  age  been  tried,  people  still  ap- 
proach an  enterprise  which  is  unhallowed  by 
custom  as  though  evil  results  were  the  only 
ones  which  could  be  expected.  You  will  have 
some  precedents  of  a  mild  type,  but  never- 
theless you  will  find  revilers. 

"Think  maturely  before  you  form  your  plan 
or  act  on  it,,  and  remember  that  I  earnestly 
urge  it,  and  yearn  passionately  to  see  its  ful- 
fillment." 

The  nobility  f!f  purpose  indicated  by  this 
desire  made  such  a  powerful  impression  on 
Adrian,  that  he  soon  found  himself  in  love 
with  Helen,  and  felt  confident  that  she  would 
readily  accept  him,  but  when  he  asked  her  to 
be  his  wife,  her  reply  was  characteristic.  She 
said:  "I  love  you,  but  I  cannot  marry  you. 
I  could  never  consent  to  share  a  fortune 


Toil    and    Self  99 

which  is  too  large  to  be  equitable,  or  of  use 
to  you  personally".  To  his  expostulations 
she  continued :  "You  may  say  that  the  money 
was  accumulated  by  fair  means,  and  that  it  is 
honestly  yours,  and  so  on.  Very  true,  but 
you  did  not  work  for  it,  neither  did  the  ma- 
jority of  the  men  who  held  it  before  you.  It 
reached  its  present  size  simply  by  the  invest- 
ment and  reinvestment  of  funds ;  or,  bluntly 
stated,  by  slothful  accumulation.  No  man  has 
the  right  to  own  more  money  than  he  can 
use ;  for  large  sums  act  as  magnets,  and  draw 
toward  them  other  money,  and  thus  render 
an  even  balance  of  prosperity  impossible.  If 
many  fortunes  increased  as  yours  has,  there 
would  in  the  end  be  a  centralization  of  wealth 
which  would  destroy  even  what  little  good 
there  is  in  the  social  fabric.  Fortunately, 
however,  it  is  easier  for  a  camel  to  go  through 
the  needle's  eye  than  for  a  rich  man's  son 
or  grandson  not  to  be  a  spendthrift,  and 
through  this  wise  provision  of  economics  im- 
mense fortunes,  along  with  their  owners,  soon 
become  dissipated." 


100  Toil    and    Self 

Appreciating  the  strength  of  her  deter- 
mination, the  young  man  did  not  hesitate. 
His  love  for  her  outweighed  the  temptation 
to  keep  all  his  wealth,  the  greater  part  of 
which,  as  she  rightly  said,  was  useless  to  him. 
He  therefore  declared  his  determination  to 
part  with  it,  just  as  Miss  Maitland's  father 
had  done  with  his,  and  he  held  many  consul- 
tations with  her  as  to  the  best  means  of  dis- 
posing of  the  bulk  of  his  fortune. 

Helen  Maitland  had  for  years  cherished  as 
a  dream  that  which  she  now  suddenly  found 
herself  able  to  realize.  Her  lover  Had  pro- 
fessed himself  willing  to  abide  by  her  decis- 
ion regarding  the  disposal  of  the  fortune ;  and 
when  her  scheme  was  fully  presented  to  him, 
he  was  deeply  impressed  by  the  grandeur 
of  its  possibilities,  and  at  once  acknowledged 
this  admiration  by  legally  making  over  to  her, 
on  their  wedding  day,  the  greater  portion  of 
his  millions.  The  result  of  this  act  of  gener- 
osity was  what  came  to  be  known  to  the 
world  as  Altruria,  which  materialized  several 
years  later.  The  interval  was  spent  in  secur- 


Toil    and    Self,    ,  101 

ing  the  land  for  the  experiment,  as  well  as 
in  forming  a  constitution  for  the  State  which 
was  to  be.  It  must  not  be  supposed  that 
Adrian  and  his  wife  assumed  the  entire  re- 
sponsibility of  this.  On  the  contrary,  the 
wisest  trait  of  these  wise  young  people  was 
that  they  knew  their  limitations.  The  stat- 
utes of  government  were  drawn  up  by  a  num- 
ber of  the  most  able  legal  Idealists  of  the 
times,  just  as  in  preceding  centuries  the  phil- 
osopher Locke  had  been  engaged  to  draw  up 
a  constitution  for  a  State  of  the  New  World ; 
a  constitution,  by  the  way,  which  was  never 
put  into  execution.  On  her  favorite  point,  how- 
ever, Helen  Stuyvesant  insisted  strenuously: 
an  idea  which  had  been  suggested  by  one  of 
the  brightest  minds  of  the  latter  middle  ages, 
namely,  that  in  the  new  republic,  money 
should  never  come  into  use.  The  system  by 
which  this  was  achieved  was  a  combination 
of  certain  theories,  which  at  various  times  had 
arrested  the  attention  of  thinkers,  and  had 
been  notably  set  forth  in  some  books  which, 
two  centuries  before,  had  created  no  small 


102  T6il    and    Self 

amount*  of  interest  and  speculation.  They 
were  entitled  "Looking  Backward"  and 
"Equality",  and  purported  to  be  a  prediction 
of  the  ultimate  solution  of  universal  prob- 
lems. In  spite  of  the  time  that  had  elapsed 
since  those  books  were  written,  and  although 
the  sanguine  assertions  of  the  authors  had 
never  in  the  slightest  degree  been  realized  by 
the  natural  course  of  events,  Helen  had  never 
ceased  to  have  faith  in  the  theories.  Her 
fondest  dream  had  been  to  institute  an  experi- 
mental test  of  them,  and  now  that  the  power 
to  do  this  was  in  her  hands,  she  lost  no  time 
in  putting  it  into  execution. 

The  preliminary  steps  were  quickly  dis- 
patched. Civilization  had  encroached  upon 
land  to  such  an  extent  that  it  was  difficult  to 
find  a  spot  not  already  thickly  populated,  but 
there  was  found  an  island  in  the  Pacific 
Ocean  whose  inhabitants  were  comparatively 
few,  and  the  purchase  of  the  land  from  the 
government  being  complete,  and  perfect  au- 
tonomy secured,  it  was  not  difficult  to  indem- 
nify these  persons,  and  make  them  move  to 


Toil    and    Self  103 

the  mainland.  The  situation  of  the  island, 
geographically  considered,  was  remote,  but  in 
view  of  the  marvelous  contrivances  for  aerial 
transportation,  as  well  as  navigation,  which 
existed  even  in  that  day,  this  consideration 
was  a  minor  one.  Buildings  were  erected,  and 
the  entire  spot  was  subjected  to  elaborate 
sanitary  and  industrial  improvements  before 
the  persons  who  were  to  be  the  exponents  of 
the  new  doctrines  were  installed.  When  all 
was  ready,  the  formerly  commonplace  spot 
presented  an  unprecedented  example  of  hu- 
man industry  and  skill.  On  the  coast  had 
been  built  a  city  whose  artistic  buildings  were  | 
surrounded  by  fine  gardens,  and  whose  thor-  | 
oughfares  were  broad  and  well  paved.  In  the  H 
suburbs  were  many  factories,  but  smoke,  in- 
stead of  spreading  over  the  sky  like  a  pall  as 
heretofore,  was  led  by  underground  pipes  to 
chambers  constructed  to  receive  the  soot, 
whence  it  escaped  in  a  purified  form.  Every- 
thing was  constructed  on  a  utilitarian  basis, 
but  with  the  aesthetic  side  equally  considered. 
All  this  being  completed,  the  immigrants  be- 


104  Toil    and    Self 

gan  to  arrive.  The  selection  of  these  immi- 
grants is  especially  worthy  of  note.  Human 
sagacity  and  penetration  could  go  no  further 
than  in  the  skill  which  was  displayed.  They 
were  without  exception  young  persons.  Most 
of  them  were  children,  and  had  been  chosen 
with  a  special  regard  for  good  character  and 
worthy  parentage  from  among  the  orphan 
asylums  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  and,  where 
they  had  guardians  or  immediate  relatives, 
an  entire  relinquishment  of  claims  was  secured 
from  them.  This  was  done  with  a  view  to 
isolating  the  young  recruits  from  all  contrary 
influences,  and  having  therefore  secured  per- 
fectly unbiased  minds  and  thoroughly  ductile 
material,  the  persons  in  charge  of  Altruria  at 
once  proceeded  to  mold  these  minds  accord- 
ing to  the  end  in  view.  The  same  principles 
of  altruism  which  for  a  century  before  the 
Idealists  had  inaugurated  in  their  system  of 
education  were  brought  to  bear,  but  these 
were  supplemented  by  all  the  practical  re- 
forms suggested  by  the  books  already  re- 
ferred to  and  others.  The  first  and  most  radi- 


Toil    and    Self  105 

cal  of  these  I  have  already  mentioned:  the 
disappearance  of  the  money  system.  The  way 
in  which  this  was  brought  about  was  by  the 
centralization  of  all  the  capital  of  the  embryo 
nation  in  its  government,  which  then  became 
the  employer  of  the  people  under  it.  A  de- 
tailed account  of  this  system  would  take  too 
long;  suffice  it  to  say,  that  perfect  equality 
in  all  things  was  the  fundamental  rule.  Men, 
women  and  invalids  all  ranked  alike,  as  to  the  I 
distribution  of  pay ;  all  worked  according  to 
their  ability,  or  not  at  all,  if  debarred  by  in- 
superable physical  or  mental  obstacles,  and 
each  one  received  from  the  State  exactly  the  | 
same  salary  as  the  other.  Social  distinctions, 
too,  were  abolished.  No  difference  was  made  I 
between  the  manual  laborer  and  the  scientist. 

Each  man  or  woman  was  forced  to  choose  his 

•*. ' 

occupation,  but  stringent  laws  made  it  oblig- 
atory for  them  to  keep  to  the  standard  of  the 
profession  they  had  chosen,  under  pain  of 
punishment  and  degradation  in  the  "indus- 
trial army",  as  it  was  called. 

These  principles  of  advanced  socialism,  or 


106  Toil    and    Self 

communism,  obtained  in  all  the  relations  and 
circumstances  of  the  new  order  of  things. 
There  were  common  dining-rooms,  common 
kitchen,  and  common  servants.  There  were 
national  bureaus  of  cooking  and  of  house- 
cleaning,  and  every  member  of  society  was 
liable  to  be  called  upon  to  perform  menial 
services  for  others,  at  the  bidding  of  the  gov- 
ernment. In  the  "army"  no  one  entered  with 
a  brevet  grade.  Each  man  was  a  simple  pri- 
vate, until  by  his  merits,  or  by  the  length  of 
his  service,  he  acquired  a  higher  rank. 

All  these  theories  and  provisions  were 
without  doubt  commendable,  and  they  were 
worked  out  with  rigid  exactitude.  The  chil- 
dren in  process  of  education  were  so  saturated 
with  them  that  when  they  arrived  at  matur- 
ity they  fell  into  the  paths  prescribed  to  them 
with  passive  obedience.  Everyone  worked, 
but  it  soon  became  apparent  that  in  the  very 
nature  of  things  there  could  be  no  common 
similarity  of  workmanship  or  energy.  Abso- 
lute equality  was,  therefore,  only  conven- 
tional, and  to  a  certain  degree  inexact.  The 


Toil    and    Self  107 

man  who  worked  zealously  received  no  more 
than  the  man  who  shirked  his  work.  He 
might  be  promoted  sooner,  but  the  material 
recompense  was  the  same.  It  was  a  great 
temptation,  therefore,  to  obey  the  physical 
impulse  which  restricted  work,  and  the  plan 
offered  to  those  who  were  naturally  lazy 
much  opportunity  to  indulge  this  fault.  Nev- 
ertheless, for  a  while  the  whole  colony  was 
like  a  huge  school  in  which  the  regular  rou- 
tine went  on  like  clockwork.  A  few  worked 
from  conscience  and  real  love  of  work,  the 
majority  worked  because  the  habit  was 
formed,  and  many  shirked  or  partly  rebelled. 
Public  opinion  was  expected  to  be  the  strong- 
est check  on  ^misdemeanor  of  any  kind,  but 
since  it  was  the  restless  spirits  who  broke  the 
rules,  they  were  inclined  to  enjoy  or  defy  the 
criticism  of  the  majority. 

Persistent  laziness  was  punished  by  isolating 
the  recalcitrant  members  on  a  reservation, 
with  tools,  seeds,  etc.,  where  they  must  work 
or  starve.  This  plan  ultimately  menaced  the 
existence  of  the  colony,  for  the  isolated  mem- 


108  Toil    and    Self 

bers  became  a  nucleus  of  revolt,  and  required 
so  much  surveillance  that  they  were  finally 
imprisoned,  but  the  advanced  philanthropy  of 
the  times  considered  crime  atavism,  and  the 
prisons  were  fairly  pleasant  abodes,  so  that 
it  was  not  at  all  repugnant  to  most  persons 
to  be  incarcerated  in  them. 

The  careful  education  produced  in  the  main 
a  set  of  automatons,  and  where  a  strong  indi- 
viduality asserted  itself,  the  encouragement  it 
might  meet  with  from  one  direction  was 
promptly  changed  by  repression  from  an- 
other. Malleable  as  was  the  material  selected, 
human  nature  would  crop  out,  and  when  a  boy 
with  inventive  genius  had  been  aided  to  per- 
fect some  valuable  invention,  receiving  for  it 
perhaps  the  thanks  of  the  community,  but  also 
the  envy  and  criticism  of  his  mates,  it  would 
have  been  strange  had  he  not  thought  with 
discontent  of  the  gains  he  could  have  made 
in  a  different  state  of  society  in  the  outer 
world.  The  brighter  minds  were  either  rest- 
ive or  rusted,  and  while  the  schools  were  re- 


Toil    and    Self  109 

cruited  constantly,  the  average  of  intelligence 
diminished  after  a  generation. 

The  leaven  of  restlessness  spread  not  only 
through  revolt  from  work,  but  in  the  recrea- 
tion and  social  intercourse.  Each  individual 
was  given  entire  liberty  to  use  his  leisure  as 
he  chose,  and  at  once  there  grew  up  the  nat- 
ural distinction  between  those  who  chose  the 
intellectual  pleasures  and  those  who  preferred 
the  material.  No  amount  of  precept  could 
prevent  a  lack  of  sympathy  between  them, 
which  meant  social  separation.  More  than 
all,  the  problem  of  regulating  marriages  for 
the  good  of  the  community  produced  endless 
trouble. 

With  an  assured  living  on  a  fixed  amount 
of  labor,  the  responsibility  for  posterity  was 
thrown  on  to  the  State.  The  docile  members 
of  the  community,  who  married  with  the  con- 
sent of  the  State,  reproduced  a  weak  type  of 
citizen,  while  the  stronger  men  and  women 
resented  the  State's  interference  in  a  matter 
which  by  natural  law  they  considered  the  right 
of  the  individual. 


110  Toil    and    Self 

During  the  life  of  Adrian  and  his  wife  the 
colony  flourished  through  the  impetus  of 
their  enthusiasm  and  devotion ;  but  after  they 
had  passed  away,  the  friction  between  the 
governing  and  the  governed  members  of  the 
community  increased,  until  the  once  united 
island  was  broken  up  into  a  dozen  separate 
towns,  with  each  one  carrying  on  its  own 
conception  of  the  ideal  state,  until  they  all 
relapsed  into  what  an  Idealist  would  have 
called  barbarism. 

We  now  know,  as  did  some  of  the  thinkers 
of  that  day,  that  the  slow  working  laws  of  de- 
velopment had  not  brought  the  race  to  a  point 
where  the  Idealist  teaching  (founded  on  an 
abstract  morality,  without  any  of  the  personal 
element  of  the  older  faiths)  was  real  and  vital 
enough  to  conquer  innate  selfishness.  Love 
of  humanity,  except  as  a  corollary  of  self-love 
(which  means  selfhood,  not  selfishness),  is  not 
true  philanthropy,  nor  did  it  ever  appeal  to 
the  masses.  It  was  always  an  emotional  lux- 
ury. No  wiser  command  was  ever  spoken 
than  "Know  thyself',  for  then  follow* 


Toil    and    Self  111 

knowledge  of^all,  as  we  in  this  day  are  clearly 
learning.  It  is  remarkable  that  the  world 
should  have  been  so  slow  to  learn  this  lesson, 
and  to  realize  that  society  could  never  be  re- 
formed from  without;  no  sovereign  remedy 
applied  to  one  spot  on  the  body  politic  could 
affect  a  permanent  cure  of  even  one  social 
evil;  and,  after  all,  the  altruism  of  C/topia 
turned  into  the  egoism  of  a  Metopia.  But  as 
only  experience  teaches,  all  these  experiments 
were  an  essential  part  of  human  development. 
It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  give,  in  as  much 
detail,  the  story  of  other  schemes  tried  and 
found  wanting.  The  colony  of  Altruria  was 
the  most  extensive  plan  ever  tried,  and  the 
small  divisions  into  which  it  finally  resolved 
itself,  adopted  the  fads  of  one  Idealist  after 
another  which  were  more  or  less  successful, 
according  to  the  self-assertive  power  of  their 
several  originators.  The  intercourse  with 
other  parts  of  the  world,  in  which  such  very 
different  conditions  prevailed,  was  a  strong 
element  in  the  disintegration  of  these  com- 
mun;;i  s.  It  was  impossible  to  isolate  them 


112  Toil    and    Self 

completely,  for  rebellion  against  such  isola- 
tion was  one  of  the  first  difficulties  in  the  orig- 
inal colony. 

The  devotion  and  mistaken  unselfishness  of 
the  Idealists  are  the  most  admirable  part  of 
this  history,  and  are  comparable  only  to  the 
sacrifices  of  the  early  Christians,  though  not 
so  dramatic.  Several  fortunes  were  sacri- 
ficed in  establishing  "free  cities",  as  they  were 
called,  where,  though  money  was  not  abol- 
ished as  in  Altruria,  the  ownership  of  all  the 
land  was  vested  in  the  city,  and  the  occupants 
paid  rent  in  lieu  of  taxes,  and  no  speculative 
interests  were  allowed.  Every  form  of  labor 
was  corporate,  but  not  co-operative,  the  man- 
agement of  every  business  and  its  traffic  with 
other  cities  being  in  the  hands  of  an  elective 
committee  on  salaries  like  other  workers. 
Profits  when  not  used  for  increasing  the  plant 
were  put  into  an  insurance  and  pension  fund, 
so  that  widows  and  orphans  should  be  aided 
and  the  old  age  of  both  sexes  provided  for. 
The  citizens  were  required  to  remain  a  year 
at  least,  but  after  that  were  free  to  remove 


Toil    and    Self  113 

elsewhere,  and  in  consequence  of  this  liberty 
these  colonists  were  more  contented  than 
many  others. 

Several  of  the  communities  split,  however, 
on  the  rock  of  total  abstinence,  which  the 
majority  unwisely  attempted  to  enforce,  and 
one  by  one  they  all  went  to  pieces  from  one 
cause  or  another. 

In  the  meantime  the  world  at  large  was 
struggling  on  in  the  old  way,  and  the  love  of 
power  and  of  wealth  increased  day  by  day,  and 
with  these  conditions  and  their  results  our 
next  lecture  will  deal. 


LECTURE  VII 

LABOR  TRIUMPHANT 

During  the  fifty  years  that  Altruria  flour- 
ished, it  was  the  star  of  hope  to  the  Idealist 
school,  for  the  darkness  of  the  world's  condi1 
tions  seemed  everywhere  deepening.  The 
show  and  glitter  of  wealth  dazzled  the  eyes 
of  the  superficial  as  long  as  they  did  not  feel 
the  crushing  iron  hand  beneath  the  silken 
glove,  but  the  working  multitude  and  the 
thinker  realized  that  life  was  growing  so  griev- 
ous a  burden  for  the  majority,  that  nothing 
but  a  cataclysm  could  be  expected.  The  hos- 
tile forces  of  wealth  and  labor  stood  opposed 
with  immensely  greater  resources  of  organiza- 
tion than  ever  before,  but,  as  always,  with  the 
advantage  on  the  side  of  capital,  so  long  as 
the  majority  refrained  from  concerted  vio- 
lence. 

In  spite  of  attempts  at  legislative  control, 

(115) 


116  Toil    and    Self 

trusts  had  grown  to  such  an  enormous  degree 
that  there  was  literally  nothing  a  man  could 
do  entirely  independent  of  some  great  cor- 
poration. Even  literature  was  chiefly  con- 
trolled by  syndicates.  A  workman  who  was 
not  a  member  of  a  vast  trade  union  was  prac- 
tically starved,  for  the  only  way  to  deal  with 
amalgamated  capital  was  by  organizations 
large  enough  to  command  some  consideration. 
As  machinery  was  daily  simplified  and  per- 
fected by  the  application  of  electricity  and 
other  processes,  the  number  of  men  required 
in  manufactories  grew  smaller  and  smaller. 
At  the  same  time  invention  improved  some 
of  the  conditions  of  life  for  the  masses,  by 
cheapening  manufactured  products,  and  sim- 
plifying processes  of  cooking  and  cleaning. 
The  working  people  claimed,  and  not  without 
reason,  that  large  proprietors  in  building 
model  tenements  for  their  operatives,  and  sup- 
plying their  necessities  at  wholesale  prices,  so 
as  to  reduce  wages  to  a  bare  living  level, 
worked  for  their  own  interest  only.  Still, 
population  increased  with  such  rapidity  that 


Toil    and    Self  117 

the  evils  of  overcrowding  became  daily  more 
aggravated,  and  one  of  the  greatest  luxuries 
of  the  wealthy  became  the  possession  of  coun- 
try estates  of  enormous  size  and  value,  which 
everywhere  pressed  in  on  a  swarming  popula- 
tion. The  "bonanza"  farms  of  the  West, 
which  once  numbered  thousands,  were  concen- 
trated into  hundreds,  and  were  jealously  pre- 
served by  wealthy  owners  as  vast  estates. 
They  were  farmed,  as  in  the  old  days,  but  by 
as  few  men  as  possible,  usually  one  bachelor 
tenant  in  charge,  hiring  "help"  as  needed  dur- 
ing the  season.  The  palaces  of  the  Old 
World  were  surpassed  by  those  of  the  New, 
and  the  moneyed  class  lived  in  a  degree  of 
luxury  never  exceeded  in  the  history  of  man. 
A  "moderate  fortune"  was  no  longer  known, 
for  nothing  moderate  was  deemed  a  fortune, 
and  the  millions  accumulated  in  the  hands  of 
a  few  families,  created  a  plutocracy  shrewd, 
suave  and  sharp,  but  insolent,  grasping  and 
cruel.  Opposed  to  it  was  the  so-called  "pan- 
tocracy",  absurdly  defined  in  the  cant  of  the 
day  as  the  "rule  of  pants".  But  the  power  of 


118  Toil    and    Self 

the  majority,  not  alone  by  force  of  superior 
numbers,  but  by  force  of  needless  suffering, 
was  gathering  enormous  momentum,  and  the 
only  wonder  is  that  it  was  so  long  held  back. 
Viewed  superficially,  human  progress  has 
been  made  by  leaps  and  bounds  in  the  shape 
of  rapid  and  violent  reactions  from  conditions 
which  have  proved  disastrous  or  dangerous, 
but  in  fact  the  progress  toward  these  reactions 
has  been  very  gradual.  Nature's  processes 
both  of  growth  and  decay  are  slow,  and  the 
rottenness  at  the  heart  of  society  defied  every 
check  until  it  had  reached  a  ghastly  extreme. 

Men  have  from  time  immemorial  sold  their 
souls  for  money,  and  when  a  whole  nation  de- 
pends for  life  itself  on  the  will  of  a  few  who 
hold  the  purse,  no  slavery  is  more  complete, 
even  though  it  lack  the  outwardly  brutal  fea- 
tures of  the  knout  or  the  auction  block.  I 
have  shown  you  some  notable  exceptions,  and 
but  for  them,  one  feels  that  the  natural  result 
of  such  conditions  would  have  come  much 
sooner. 

As  always,  the  majority  had  but  to  rise  in 


Toil    and    Self  119 

its  strength  to  crush  the  minority,  which  was 
ruling  only  by  a  specious  power.  How  any- 
one could  fail  to  foresee  this  result  is  strange 
to  us,  but  the  intoxication  of  wealth  blinded 
its  possessors,  and  the  climax  came  without 
warning. 

In  the  year  2225  an  enormously  wealthy 
manufacturer  living  in  Chicago  and  employ- 
ing 4,200  workmen,  had  built  for  them  model 
dwellings,  which  he  rented,  at  a  profit,  of 
course.  The  rents  were  regularly  deducted 
from  their  wages,  but  when  work  was  slack 
many  fell  behind  in  their  accounts,  and  so  it 
came  about  that  once  in  the  midst  of  a  howl- 
ing storm  of  snow  and  sleet  thirty  families 
were  turned  out  into  the  streets.  Women 
with  babies  in  their  arms  and  little  ones 
clinging  about  them  stood  shivering  in  des- 
pair, the  children  wailing  and  the  men  cursing 
with  rage.  The  heartless  officers  of  the  law, 
anxious  to  show  their  zeal  to  the  powerful 
company,  and  "as  a  lesson",  prevented  the 
compassionate  and  more  fortunate  neighbors 
of  those  who  were  turned  out  from  giving 


120  Toil    and    Self 

them  shelter,  by  threatening  them  with  com- 
plaints that  would  result  in  their  dismissal,  so 
that  the  unfortunate  evicted  families  were 
compelled  to  seek  what  shelter  they  might  at 
a  distance. 

One  sick  and  starving  mother  and  her  four- 
weeks'-old  infant  died  from  exposure,  and 
the  next  day's  papers,  spreading  the  story  far 
and  wide,  aroused  such  horror  and  such  an 
outburst  of  indignation  that  the  following 
night  the  workmen,  in  the  fever  of  their 
frenzy,  succeeded  in  firing  all  the  factories  and 
the  private  palace  of  the  multi-millionaire 
owner,  and  reducing  them  all  to  ashes.  The 
watchmen  were  either  willingly  inactive  or  were 
outwitted,  and  the  efforts  of  the  firemen  were 
made  useless  by  the  partial  freezing  of  the 
water  supply  and  the  cutting  of  the  hose. 
Some  powerful  hand  grenades  were  also  use- 
less because  they  were  all  purposely  broken  at 
the  first  sign  of  flames. 

The  work  was  so  quietly  and  effectually 
managed  that  not  a  suspected  workman  was 
to  be  found  near  the  scene,  and  no  one  could 


Toil    and    Self  121 

be  proven  guilty  of  the  deed.  The  whole 
4,200  men  were  thus  thrown  out  of  employ- 
ment, and  either  voluntarily  quitted  their 
homes  or  were  ejected.  The  country  rang 
with  the  shouts  of  mass  meetings  of  workmen 
who  needed  only  this  spark  to  kindle  the  spirit 
of  revolution  smoldering  far  and  wide  among 
them.  The  machinery  of  government  was  in 
the  hands  of  capitalists,  but  the  power  of 
numbers  was  on  the  side  of  the  people,  and 
there  were  leaders  ready  to  act  at  once  and 
decisively. 

The  long  pent-up  wrongs  and  angry  mut- 
terings  broke  forth,  and  no  power  could  stand 
against  the  onslaught  of  the  infuriated  mobs, 
which  now  openly  attacked  the  rich  all  over 
the  country.  Riot  was  rampant,  and  in  so 
many  places  at  once  as  to  be  uncontrollable. 
Our  modern  engines  of  warfare  are  deadly,  but 
they  were  not  alone  in  the  hands  of  the  richer 
party,  and  when  it  came  to  armed  conflict, 
where  hundreds  of  workmen  were  mowed 
down,  their  places  were  rilled  as  if  by  magic, 
while  among  the  soldiery  the  decimated  ranks 


122  Toil    and    Self 

could  not  be  so  quickly  made  good.  The  cap- 
italists, too,  were  almost  stunned  by  the  sud- 
denness of  the  outburst,  which  was  made  more 
general  and  effective  by  the  fact  that  when  the 
Chicago  outrage  took  place  a  congress  of  Fed- 
erated Workmen  was  being  held  in  that  city, 
and  the  delegates  from 'every  section  of  the 
country  went  to  their  homes  inflamed  with 
zeal  to  crush  out  the  "tyranny  of  capital". 
All  moderate  counsels  were  swept  away  by 
the  rushing  tide  of  bitter  hate  which  for  gen- 
erations had  grown  among  the  working  mul- 
titude, who  saw  daily  the  superabundance  of 
luxury  piling  up  in  the  hands  of  wealth,  and 
themselves  more  firmly  bound  hand  and  foot 
to  serve  these  masters.  Now  by  common  im- 
pulse they  felt  that  their  hour  had  come,  and 
they  made  the  most  of  it,  with  the  fierce  ap- 
petite for  revenge  born  of  long  waiting. 

Shops  and  factories  were  relentlessly  burned 
to  the  ground,  surrounded  by  determined 
mobs  who  prevented  any  interference  from  the 
military,  by  guarding  every  public  office  from 
which  orders  could  be  sent,  and  often  seizing 


Toil    and    Self  123 

the  arms  before  any  warning  orders  could  be 
given.  So  many  capitalists  had  been  assas- 
sinated or  burned  that  many  of  the  others 
were  panic-stricken  and  fled  from  the  country. 
Private  houses  were  sacked  before  being  fired, 
and  the  fantastic  effect  of  silk  draperies  and 
laces  hung  upon  the  shoulders  of  workingmen 
and  women  who  sat  in  costly  chairs  dragged 
from  the  houses,  whose  -burning  ruins  they 
watched,  added  to  the  horror  of  the  situation. 
Sometimes  the  owners  themselves  were  so 
seated  with  mock  homage  and  afterward  put 
to  death.  The  scenes  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion were  repeated  on  every  side,  but  in  the 
midst  of  their  frenzy  the  men  were  singularly 
free  from  bloodthirstmess,  except  toward  the 
few  very  rich,  or  when  opposed  by  armed 
force.  Over  five  hundred  capitalists  lost  their 
lives  from  the  unprovoked  assaults  of  the  mob, 
and  many  were  wounded  in  defending  their 
property,  or  received  rough  treatment  in  try- 
ing to  escape.  The  governing  idea  of  the  riot- 
ers, however,  was  to  reduce  their  whilom 
bosses  to  the  position  of  dependence  and 


124  Toil    and    Self 

helplessness  which  they  had  themselves  occu- 
pied. They .  secretly  held  many  employers  as 
hostages,  and  released  them  only  when  they 
gained  possession  of  all  their  wealth.  The 
revolution  was  widespread  and  practically  over 
in  so  short  a  time  as  to  surprise  even  the  in- 
stigators of  it.  The  force  of  numbers  and  of 
clever  management  cowed  even  the  national 
authorities,  and  it  was  suspected  that  How- 
ard, who  was  President  at  the  time,  sympa- 
thized with  the  revolutionists,  as  he  had  him- 
self been  a  mechanic,  and  had  risen  to  political 
power  largely  through  his  interest  in  the 
masses.  Power  passed  into  the  hands  of  the 
revolutionary  party,  and  every  State  was  re- 
organized in  its  interest. 

The  confiscated  fortunes  and  property  were 
divided  and  subdivided  until  from  one-tenth 
of  the  nation,  holding  nine-tenths  of  its  wealth, 
it  came  to  be  distributed  in  the  hands  of  about 
nine-tenths  of  the  people.  The  method  of  dis- 
tribution was  unique.  All  funds,  and  the 
value  of  all  property  were  reported  by  States, 
to  the  National  Workmen's  Federation,  with 


Toil    and    Self  125 

the  census  of  the  working  population  of  each 
State.  The  National  Council  then  adjusted 
the  amount  of  each  State,  and  reported  it  to 
the  State  Federation,  which  in  turn  settled 
the  sums  paid  to  each  local  federation.  The 
officers  of  these  institutions,  who  had  been  for 
the  most  part  the  leaders  of  the  insurrection, 
managed  to  retain  a  good  deal  of  the  money, 
satisfying  the  rank  and  file  by  the  purchase  of 
pleasure  grounds  for  them,  where  for  a  time 
free  refreshments  and  amusements  were  pro- 
vided. The  millennium  of  the  workingman 
appeared  to  him  to  be  at  hand.  The  busi- 
ness interests  made  over  to  them  were  put  into 
operation  under  new  management,  and  wages 
were  generally  increased.  Such  State  gov- 
ernments as  were  not  in  sympathy  with  the 
"True  Republic",  as  it  was  styled,  were  speed- 
ily abolished,  and  for  some  years  remarkable 
peace  and  prosperity  seemed  to  possess  the 
land.  The  old  Populist  legislation  which  had 
been  so  disastrous  years  before,  came  forward 
again  in  slightly  altered  forms,  and  jubilant 
workmen  proclaimed  that  a  reign  of  equality 


126  Toil    and    Self 

had  begun,  without  hampering  a  man's  liberty 
to  earn  more  than  his  neighbor,  if  he  were 
smart  enough. 

The  "submerged  tenth"  was  now  made  up 
chiefly  of  the  dispossessed  capitalists,  who 
went  to  work  where  they  could,  or  drifted  to 
other  countries.  The  workmen  did  not  seem 
to  appreciate  the  insecurity  of  a  social  struc- 
ture raised  by  a  volcano,  nor  that  it  was  likely 
to  be  rent  asunder  by  another  explosion,  nor 
to  see  that  a  change  of  masters  was  not  a 
change  of  principles,  and  that  clever  handling 
of  the  small  fortune  gained  by  thousands 
would  soon  raise  the  new  masters  to  the  same 
height  that  the  "bloodsuckers"  of  yesterday 
had  reached.  With  lower  ambitions,  and  not 
craving  the  use  of  wealth  for  gratifying  refined 
tastes,  the  new  capitalists  spent  money  on  the 
more  sensuous  pleasures  of  life,  and  thus  rap- 
idly acquired  a  lust  for  wealth  for  wealth's 
sake,  that  tempted  them  to  adopt  the  same 
methods  in  its  acquirement  which  they  had 
once  so  vigorously  denounced.  The  thrifty, 
cautious  and  economical  proprietors  gradu- 


Toil    and    Self  127, 

ally  increased  their  holdings,  and  while  laws 
were  made  prohibiting  anything  in  the  shape 
of  combinations  or  trusts,  they  entered  into 
compacts  with  one  another,  without  openly 
appearing  to  do  so,  and  old  abuses  soon  ex- 
isted either  secretly  or  under  new  names. 

The  most  serious  danger  to  the  State  lay 
in  the  greedy  ambition  of  the  ruling  party. 
The  delirium  caused  by  power  and  luxury  on 
untrained  brains  lured  them  into  all  manner 
of  excesses,  and  they  rapidly  went  from  bad 
to  worse.  They  did  not  dare  openly  to  tax 
the  people,  lest  they  should  rise  up  against 
them,  so  the  existing  issue  of  paper  money 
was  secretly  expanded  almost  without  limit 
until,  by  the  natural  and  eternal  laws  of 
finance,  it  fell  in  purchasing  power  to  one- 
tenth  of  its  face  value,  and  the  century  went 
out  on  a  most  pitiable  condition  of  affairs  at 
every  point.  Factories  lay  idle,  farms  were 
neglected,  "crimes  were  'rampant,  and  the 
State  was  rotten  to  the  core.  Workingmen 
on  all  sides  demanded  that  the  State  should 
support  them.  The  promises  of  the  dema- 


128  Toil    and    Self 

gogues  had  been  many,  but  their  fulfillment 
was  nowhere  to  be  seen,  and  their  dupes,  the 
workingmen,  had  at  last  really  learned  what 
is  was  to  wear  a  "silver  crown  of  thorns  and 
to  bear  a  cross  of  gold".  It  was  at  this  time 
that  the  merest  accident  practically  changed 
the  political  and  social  situation  in  the  entire 
world,  and  to  that  our  next  lecture  will  be 
devoted. 


LECTURE  VIII 

DRASTIC   DECIMATION 

We  cannot  fail  to  observe  how  frequently 
the  unexpected  comes  to  the  front  as  the  solu- 
tion of  great  problems,  and  how  often  it  is  in 
itself  a  most  natural  and  simple  event.  In  the 
midst  of  degradation  and  misery  so  universal 
that  the  most  sanguine  believers  in  human 
nature  lost  hope,  one  problem  pressed  for 
solution  so  powerfully  that  to  every  thinking 
mind  it  overshadowed  all  others.  This  was 
the  question  of  over-population,  which  had 
been  discussed  abstractly  for  centuries,  but 
had  now  ceased  to  be  an  abstraction,  and  had 
become  an  appalling  menace. 

Important  history  has  often  been  made  by 
incidents  of  apparent  insignificance,  so  that 
the  cackling  goose  of  Rome,  and  the  impa- 
tient cow  of  Chicago  have  come  to  be  house- 
hold examples  of  "how  great  a  matter  a  little 

(129) 


130  Toil    and    Self 

fire  kindleth".  So  it  happened  that  a  discov- 
ery which  had  been  sought  for  merely  as  a 
scientific  fact  brought  about  immediately  the 
most  radical  and  far-reaching  results  that  had 
ever  affected  the  populations  of  the  earth. 

It  is  palpable  that  man  is  placed  by  nature 
merely  in  the  category  of  animals,  at  the  top 
to  be  sure,  but  nevertheless  in  regard  to  prop- 
agation absolutely  in  the  same  category  and 
governed  by  the  same  general  laws.  From 
the  elephant  to  the  mosquito  nature  has  pro- 
vided against  extinction;  through  superior 
force  in  the  larger  animals,  and  with  the 
smaller  by  an  enormous  surplus  to  guard 
against  extinction  through  natural  ravages. 
The  proportional  increase  of  this  surplus 
varies  almost  in  direct  ratio  to  the  size  and 
strength  of  the  animal,  and  its  consequent  lia- 
bility to  decimation  and  destruction.  Man  is 
no  exception  to  the  law,  and  in  a  state  of  na- 
ture would  be  exposed  to  attack  by  wild 
beasts,  pestilence,  constant  and  interminable 
wars,  and  a  thousand  and  one  other  destruc- 
tive forces. 


Toil    and    Self  131 

But  under  civilization  wild  beasts  were 
practically  extinct,  and  science  went  on 
steadily  reducing  the  number  of  these  checks 
and  inroads  without  materially  lessening  the 
natural  tendency  to  surplus  production.  On 
the  contrary,  hygienic  and  sanitary  appliances, 
both  public  and  private,  made  giant  strides  in 
curtailing  the  ravages  of  pestilence  and  im- 
proving health,  until  almost  any  weakling 
born  into  the  world  was  saved  for  a  more  or 
less  miserable  life.  Workmen,  too,  were  pro- 
tected from  dangerous  conditions  of  labor  by 
humanitarian  laws,  and  from  excessive  phys- 
ical effort  in  any  direction  by  electric  inven- 
tions of  all  kinds.  On  the  other  side  of  the 
ledger,  more  from  accident  than  design,  civil- 
ization, with  its  strict  matrimonial  laws, 
tended  to  curtail  to  a  certain  extent  this  sur- 
plus. All  in  all,  however,  the  increase  of  pop- 
ulation in  the  world,  although  far  less  than 
the  provisions  of  nature  calculated,  was  still 
far  beyond  what  it  would  have  been  in  a  state 
of  nature  with  the  natural  decimating  influ- 
ences at  work.  From  this  it  appeared  that 


132  Toil    and    Self 

there  could  be  no  salvation  from  the  miseries 
of  this  enormous  over-population,  except  by 
a  decrease  on  the  other  side  of  the  equation. 

It  has  been  for  generations  an  established 
fact  that  the  poor  increased  enormously  in 
numbers,  while  the  rich  decreased,  and  one  ar- 
gument of  the  revolutionists  had  been  that, 
with  a  distribution  of  wealth,  greater  average 
opulence  would  be  created,  and  in  that  way 
the  number  of  people  in  the  world  would  not 
outstrip  the  means  of  subsistence.  It  was 
of  course  a  fallacious  argument  on  the  face 
of  it,  yet  nothing  but  experience  would  con- 
vince the  majority  of  that  fact.  The  fight  for 
existence  became  fierce  and  bitter.  The 
worst  scenes  of  the  worst  reigns  in  the  times 
of  any  revolution  were  re-enacted.  Men 
women  and  children  fought  in  the  streets  for 
food. 

Murder,  especially  of  old  people  and  chil- 
dren, became  so  frequent  that  the  machinery 
of  the  law  was  powerless  to  stop  it.  The 
prisons  were  overcrowded,  and  many  crimes 
were  committed  for  the  purpose  of  forcing 


Toil    and    Self  133 

the  authorities  to  provide  food  and  shelter  for 
the  unfortunates  who  were  starving  and 
homeless.  Bread  riots  took  place,  inces- 
santly. Scientists  labored  over  experimental 
foods,  to  furnish  some  form  of  concentrated 
nourishment  which  should  sustain  life  at  a 
minimum  cost.  Synthetic  chemistry  arrived 
to  take  the  place  of  agriculture,  and  by  pro- 
viding all  the  elements  of  wheat  and  corn, 
beef  and  mutton,  in  chemical  combinations, 
sought  to  do  away  with  grain  and  stock-farms 
and  release  the  land  to  build  upon.  Their  ef- 
forts, however,  were  not  very  successful,  and 
the  people  could  not  be  persuaded  to  adopt 
the  results.  Suddenly  relief  came  from  a  re- 
mote part  of  the  world,  and  fortuitously 
brought  about  results  which  had  not  been 
obtained  by  revolts,  legislation  or  philan- 
thropy. It  occurred  in  this  way.  The  conti- 
nent of  Africa  had  by  this  time  became  mate- 
rially civilized  by  the  incursion  of  Europeans 
who  thronged  there  from  love  of  adventure 
and  hope  of  gain.  This  led  to  a  strange  in- 
termixture of  Europeans  and  Africans,  which 


134  Toil    and    Self 

was  somewhat  similar  to  the  conditions  which 
obtained  in  the  United  States  during  the 
eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries.  In  many 
ways  it  was  a  reversal  of  those  conditions,  es- 
pecially in  that  the  superior  civilization  was 
grafted  on  to  the  inferior,  and  the  science  of 
Europe  jostled  against  the  primitive  igno- 
rance of  the  natives.  In  a  mountainous  and 
still  rather  isolated  territory  of  Central  Af- 
rica, lived  a  race  of  singularly  strong  and 
handsome  people.  They  had  resisted,  more 
than  any  others  of  their  countrymen,  the 
amalgamation  that  had  taken  place  among 
natives  and  foreigners,  and  retained,  too,  a 
warlike  spirit,  aggressive  as  well  as  defensive. 
Their  country  was  a  beautiful  one,  and  they 
ranged  over  their  mountains  with  the  free- 
dom and  vigor  of  the  few  wild  animals  that 
still  lingered  in  those  uncultivated  strong- 
holds of  nature.  At  the  same  time  they  were 
not  without  intelligence,  and  appreciation  of 
the  weapons  and  benefits  that  science  could 
add  to  their  natural  resources  and  strength 
as  a  nation.  Among  their  problems  was  the 


Toil    and    Self  135 

correction  of  a  tendency  in  their  tribe  toward 
a  gradual  diminution  of  numbers,  especially 
of  the  females.  After  long  investigation  a 
young  physician  from  London,  living  there, 
discovered  the  law  which  governs  the  origin  of 
sex.  Many  times  before,  this  discovery  had 
been  announced,  but  the  claim  had  proved 
false.  This  law  was  soon  published,  and  be- 
came immediately  a  matter  of  widespread  in- 
terest, and  universally  known.  Strangely 
enough  the  results  were,  unconsciously  to  the 
individual  actors,  of  vast  importance  to  the 
world.  It  is  well  known  that  the  Arab  at  the 
birth  of  a  son,  always  exclaimed :  "Praise  be 
to  Allah",  and  on  hearing  the  news  that  a 
daughter  had  been  born  to  him,  broke  out 
with  invectives  and  an  "arabesque"  of  curses. 
They  were  perhaps  foremost  among  all  the 
races  in  the  intensity  of  their  feeling  in  that 
regard,  but  it  is  more  or  less  the  attitude  of 
the  world  at  large.  Boys  provide  for  them- 
selves at  an  earlier  age,  and  girls  are  more 
of  a  care.  The  result  of  the  publication  of 
this  discovery,  and  of  this  natural  human  in- 


136  Toil    and    Self 

stinct,  or  outgrowth  of  selfishness,  was  that 
during  the  next  half  century  the  proportion  of 
male  children  to  female  children  born  was 
about  twenty  to  one,  and  the  further  result 
during  the  next  half  century  was  that  the 
population  of  the  world  was  reduced,  as  you 
may  know,  from  twenty-five  hundred  million 
to  three  hundred  million,  and  the  miseries 
which  had  been  known  in  the  centuries  from 
1950  to  2200  were  disappearing  like  dew  be- 
fore the  morning's  sun. 

Previous  to  this  period,  for  nearly  two  gen- 
erations, the  world's  history  is  as  dark  a  pic- 
ture as  can  be  imagined.  Anarchy  reigned 
supreme  in  some  countries,  where  the  over- 
crowding had  become  so  extreme  that  not  a 
foot  of  land  was  untenanted,  and  hundreds 
and  thousands  were  forcibly  deported  to  pes- 
tilential colonies  in  Africa  and  South  America. 
In  the  United  States  the  law-abiding  citizens, 
horrified  by  mob  rule,  exerted  every  means  to 
get  control,  and  after  fierce  conflict  at  the 
polls,  succeeded  in  wrestling  from  anarchy 
the  machinery  of  government,  but  every  State 


Toil    and    Self  137 

was  so  exhausted  in  resources  that  utter 
apathy  followed.  Population  had  spread  far 
to  the  North,  and  on  to  the  Pacific  Islands, 
and  all  that  saved  many  communities  from 
utter  ruin  was  the  restless  spirit  of  emigration 
which  came  to  possess  the  people.  At  the 
first  report  of  abundant  harvests  anywhere 
there  was  an  immediate  movement  to  that 
spot,  which  was  overrun  as  by  a  swarm  of 
locusts  and  soon  left  bare. 

Such  conditions  had  virtually  reduced  man 
to  the  primitive  conditions  of  barbarism,  with 
all  society  warring  against  itself,  when  sud- 
denly the  effects  of  the  diminishing  population 
began  to  appear.  The  limit  of  food  produc- 
tion had  previously  been  reached,  but  now 
with  the  reduction  of  population  better  con- 
ditions prevailed,  the  desperation  of  the  ri- 
valry of  existence  disappeared  by  degrees, 
peace  and  plenty  returned,  and  the  pendulum 
swung  slowly  back  and  far  over  to  the  other 
extreme. 

Of  course  the  indolent,  thriftless  and  vicious 
were  poor  and  miserable,  but  none  became 


138  Toil    and    Self 

so  except  through  a  strong  bent  in  that  direc- 
tion, for  there  was  absolutely  no  necessity 
for  any  individual  to  be  other  than  prosper- 
ous and  comfortable. 

In  the  earlier  centuries  there  was  an  enor- 
mous mass  to  whom  want  and  poverty  seemed 
almost  a  necessity.  They  were  crowded  out 
and  down  by  the  immense  pressure  of  num- 
bers, and,  being  the  weakest,  went  to  the 
wall,  but  with  the  population  only  one  to  ten 
per  acre  of  what  it  had  been,  every  human 
being  could  easily  find  a  compensation  for 
effort.  It  has  been  nearly  two  centuries  since 
what  is  now  known  as  "the  great  decimation" 
took  place,  and  as  you  know  one  of  the  chief 
bureaus  of  our  present  government  is  the  sta- 
tistical one,  which  finds  no  difficulty  through 
suggestion  and  exhortation  in  keeping  the 
balance  of  population  and  available  land  so 
completely  in  harmony,  as  to  avoid  all  the 
terrible  disasters  which  sprang  up  during  the 
previous  few  centuries.  A  few  accumulations 
of  capital  in  one  man's  hands  have  recently 
been  found  in  effect  to  be  a  helpful  rather 


Toil    and    Self  139 

than  a  baleful  condition,  as  they  permitted  en- 
terprises which  were  of  necessity  large,  but 
the  homely  phrase  that  it  was  only  "three 
generations  from  shirtsleeve  to  shirtsleeve", 
was  still  generally  the  rule.  Occasionally  it 
extended  to  four  generations,  and  in  rare 
cases  to  five,  but  scarcely  ten  cases  are  on 
record  where  it  reached  six.  As  to  corpora- 
tions, it  was  found  that,  after  all,  immense 
amounts  of  money  were  a  necessity  for  large 
undertakings,  and  that  in  the  end  they 
brought  about  no  special  injury  to  the  State 
when  reasonably  administered,  and  the  scar- 
city of  labor  made  oppression  impossible.  A 
careful  study  of  all  the  experiences  of  the 
Idealists  and  the  Altruists  prove  that  their 
theories  were  specious,  weak  and  untenable, 
although  alluring  and  picturesque. 

Nature  has  framed  the  law  of  selfishness  as 
the  one  great  fundamental  necessity,  and  the 
only  base  on  which  the  animal  creation  and 
humanity  could  exist,  namely,  that  every 
specimen  should  care  primarily  for  himself, 


140  Toil    and    Self 

and  should  primarily  devote  his  entire  energy 
to  his  own  self-protection  and  continuance. 

Eventually  this  was  acknowledged  to  be  the 
only  possible  ground  on  which  society  could 
exist.  Every  attempt  at  substituting  the  law 
of  altruism,  as  such,  had  been  a  dismal  fail- 
ure. Of  course  the  family  was  merely  an 
amplification  of  the  selfish  idea  and  theory, 
and  in  the  past  two  centuries  the  only  effective 
altruism  has  been  that  which  devoted  itself 
entirely  to  restricting  the  extreme  expansion 
of  selfishness,  and  sought  to  teach  the  law 
that  in  itself  selfishness  enclosed  a  certain 
modicum  of  altruism  which  was  sufficient  to 
prevent  radical  excesses,  inside  of  which  the 
world  must  be  permitted  to  continue,  on  the 
lines  which  nature  has  indicated  through  its 
constitution  of  human  nature. 


LECTURE  IX. 

INTERNATIONAL  COURT 

The  drastic  decimation,  to  which  reference 
was  made  in  my  last  lecture,  brought  about 
many  results,  but  chief  among  them  was  the 
fact  that  the  paucity  of  men  in  the  community 
prevented  the  existence  of  any  large  standing 
army.  There  were  barely  enough  soldiers 
to  fill  the  fortresses,  so  that  beyond  this  any 
army  was  an  impossibility.  Hence  the  na- 
tions were  mightily  afraid  of  each  other,  even 
though  each  one  knew  that  his  neighbor  had 
been  reduced  in  numerical  fighting  forces 
quite  as  much  as  he  had.  Nevertheless  great 
uneasiness  prevailed,  and  as  an  outcome  of  it 
the  peace  party,  which  had  long  existed,  came 
to  the  front  and,  aided  by  circumstances, 
brought  about  what  had  been  many  times 
proposed,  but  never  brought  within  range  of 
possibility,  namely,  the  disarmament  of  the 

(141) 


142  Toil    and    Self 

nations.  This  step  also  as  a  natural  conse- 
quence caused  the  creation  and  adoption  of 
an  institution,  which  was  not  only  the  out- 
growth of  these  events,  but  toward  which 
public  sentiment  had  drifted  for  many  cen- 
turies. By  long  experience  it  had  been  proved 
that  the  Court  of  Justice,  although  slow  in 
its  movements,  offered,  nevertheless,  the 
most  satisfactory  method  of  settling  disputes 
between  individuals.  The  barbaric  practice 
of  going  about  fully  armed  in  order  to  protect 
one's  self  against  the  attack  of  his  next-door 
neighbor  had  disappeared  from  the  face  of  the 
earth,  and  except  in  rare  cases  any  man's  life 
was  safe  day  and  night.  By  very  slow  de- 
grees it  came  to  be  confessed  that  what 
seemed  to  be  good  for  the  individual  was 
equally  so  for  the  nation,  and  it  was  admitted 
that  the  argument  was  even  stronger  in  re- 
gard to  nations,  because  with  the  individual 
there  was  no  constant  and  recurring  expense 
to  arm  himself,  whereas  with  the  nation  there 
was  a  constant  and  an  increasing  expenditure 
incurred  in  maintaining  an  army  and  navy. 


Toil    and    Self  143 

There  were  a  vast  number  of  men  kept  living 
at  an  enormously  high  expense,  when  all  the 
items  were  taken  into  account,  and  levying 
this  expense  from  the  working  non-military 
members  of  the  community. 

At  this  date  there  were  no  crowned  heads 
in  Europe,  and  the  nobility  had  practically 
ceased  with  them,  except  a  few  remaining 
empty  titles.  The  abolition  of  an  aristocracy 
and  court  nobility  had  made  it  possible  for  the 
peace  party  to  carry  out  their  plan  of  estab- 
lishing an  International  Court,  since  the 
great  stumbling  block  in  their  way  hitherto 
had  been  the  necessity  of  an  army,  not  alone 
from  motives  of  defense,  but  also  to  give  occu- 
pation to  the  titled  nobility.  The  old  stigma 
of  trade  had  continued  in  their  eyes,  and  for 
a  nobleman's  son  the  army  was  the  only  occu- 
pation worthy  of  his  blood.  With  the  removal 
of  this  great  bar,  with  common  sense  and  jus- 
tice on  their  side,  and  with  the  vital  necessity 
for  some  such  action,  the  peace  party  finally 
established  the  "International  Court".  This 
was  its  title,  but  in  reality  it  was  a  legislative 


144  Toil    and    Self 

body,  or,  more  properly  speaking,  a  congress 
endowed  with  absolute  and  final  power,  the 
Supreme  Court  of  all  nations,  able  to  enforce 
its  decisions  by  strength  of  arms.  The  plan 
of  its  organization  was  as  follows:  Every 
country  of  Europe,  and  the  United  States,  was 
represented  in  the  so-called  Northern  Con- 
gress, and  the  entire  continent  of  South 
America  was  represented  by  the  Southern 
Congress.  China  and  Africa  were  governed 
entirely  by  Europe  and  so  represented.  There 
was  one  representative  for  every  five  million 
inhabitants,  and  they  met  regularly  on  the 
first  of  September  and  the  first  of  March,  and 
held  sessions  as  long  as  was  necessary  to  settle 
all  disputed  points  which  had  arisen  since  the 
previous  session.  The  congress  was  regular- 
ly organized,  with  every  representative  hav- 
ing a  vote,  except  that  no  country  had  any 
voting  power  on  questions  in  which  that  coun- 
try was  involved,  but  had  the  right  of  being 
heard  in  argument. 

By  international  agreement  the  army  and 
navy  of  every  country  was  exactly  in  propor- 


Toil    and    Sfelf  145 

tion  to  its  inhabitants,  and  was  only  sufficient 
to  cope  with  .internal  dissension,  and  to  act  as 
a  national  police. 

According  to  the  original  terms  of  the 
agreement  all  members  of  the  confederation 
were  bound  to  join  together,  and  enforce  the 
laws  of  the  court  against  any  individual  na- 
tion which  might  rebel  against  its  decision. 
In  this  way,  although  some  individuals  were 
very  much  stronger  than  any  other,  yet  the 
aggregation  of  the  others  made  them  four 
times  as  strong  as  the  strongest  single  one  in 
the  body.  Of  course  it  was  necessary  to 
amplify  the  code  of  international  law,  to  ren- 
der new  decisions  for  new  cases,  and  as  time, 
went  on  to  codify  the  laws  already  made. 
Whenever  a  case  came  up  between  nations  of 
the  different  confederations  which  could  not 
be  settled  by  arbitration  (which  course  had 
become  very  frequent  and  popular),  a  special 
conference  was  held  by  a  body  formed  by  tak- 
ing ten  from  each  congress,  and  having  one 
delegate  only  from  any  given  State,  and  none 

from  the  two  States  between  whom  the  trou- 
10 


146  Toil    and    Self 

ble  existed.  This  state  of  affairs  has  existed 
practically  since  the  "drastic  decimation",  a 
period,  as  you  know,  of  over  200  years,  and  it 
now  seems  unlikely  that  the  world  will  ever 
again  have  recourse  to  international  war,  just 
as  unlikely  as  that  civilized  communities  can 
even  revert  to  the  primitive  plan  of  personal 
self-defense  as  a  generally  adopted  custom. 
One  great  result  of  the  court  has  been  the 
abolition  of  the  enormous  expense  occasioned 
by  large  standing  armies  and  by  navies,  with 
which  the  nations  were  burdened  from  the 
nineteenth  to  the  twenty-third  centuries. 
Taxes  became  reduced  to  a  very  low  limit,  and 
even  then  the  proportion  of  money  which  was 
formerly  devoted  to  warlike  purposes,  more 
than  sufficed  to  pay  the  expenses  of  the  Inter- 
national Court,  and  to  keep  all  the  highways 
and  thoroughfares  of  the  various  nations  in 
perfect  order.  We  are, -however,  forced  to 
confess  that  even  this  great  revolution  has  not 
by  any  means  settled  the  deep  and  vital  ques- 
tions of  sociology  which  so  perplexed  earlier 
ages.  There  seems  to  be  for  these  no  remedy. 


Toil    and    Self  147 

Suffering,  want,  physical  ailments,  inequali- 
ties of  rank  and  station,  of  intelligence,  and 
of  worldly  goods  must  exist.  Through  actual 
legislation  and  penalty,  or  the  fear  of  it,  they 
can  be  kept  within  certain  bounds,  and  pre- 
vented from  running  into  the  wild  and  abnor- 
mally radical  exaggerations,  which  have  from 
time  to  time  shocked  public  sentiment,  and  • 
resulted  in  those  violent  upheavals  which 
temporarily  brought  society  back  nearer  to 
the  level  of  equality.  I  cannot  more  fitly  end 
this  course  of  lectures  than  by  reading  to  you 
the  letter  of  a  somewhat  hopeless  idealist  of 
recent  date,  which  runs  as  follows :  "The  one 
salient  conclusion  to  which  the  drift  of  all 
idealistic  polemics  and  observation  has  led 
during  the  last  two  centuries,  is  that  all  the 
teachings  of  altruism  are  working  in  a  direc- 
tion contrary  to  that  of  nature.  Nature's 
laws  are  of  a  necessity  excessively  simple, 
wide-reaching  and  fundamental.  It  was  im-  T 
possible  for  the  great  law  of  life  to  be  any  other  \ 
than  that  of  selfishness.  The  entire  population  \ 
of  the  world  would  promptly  be  destroyed  v 


148  Toil    and    Self 

were  it  not  for  the  deep  desire  and  effort  on 
the  part  of  every  individual  to  take  care  of 
himself  in  the  way  of  protection  and  improve- 
ment, first,  foremost,  and  last.  Imagine  for 
one  instant  a  world  where  everyone  depended 
on  someone  else  to  look  out  for  him.  On 
similar  lines  the  average  standard  of  the  com- 
munity was  to  be  elevated  through  the  simple 
principle  of  the  domination  of  the  strongest, 
and  honestly  looked  at,  dispassionately,  and 
free  from  sentiment,  we  must  admit  that  the 
law  of  nature  by  which  the  sick  are  left 
to  themselves,  and  the  weak  perish  and  die, 
while  cruel  to  the  individual,  is  vastly  useful 
and  important  to  the  best  growth  of  the  en- 
tire body.  Altruism  has  steadily  sought  to 
deny  this  principle  in  theory,  and  to  assert 
and  put  in  practice,  as  far  as  possible,  laws 
which  have  protected  the  weak,  and  propa- 
gated far  and  wide  poor,  miserable,  inefficient, 
useless  human  stock,  on  the  false  assumption 
that  because  each  specimen  was  human,  it  was 
therefore  of  as  much  value  as  every  other 
one,  and  that  extra  precautions  should  for  that 


Toil    and    Self  149 

reason  be  taken  to  protect  it.  As  a  result  we 
are  bound  to  confess  that  the  average  of 
physical  health  and  strength  is  far  greater  in 
savage  nations  than  in  those  civilized  ones 
where  the  laws  of  hygiene  and  of  the  curative 
and  saving  appliances  of  science  are  domi- 
nant, and  I  might  almost  say  rampant.  What, 
therefore,  must  we  conclude?  Is  altruism  in 
its  manifold  ramifications  an  error,  and  sel- 
fishness the  law  which  we  must  seek  to  fol- 
low? Can  we  modify  and  alter  selfishness 
only  to  the  extent  of  preventing  it  from  run- 
ning to  excess  and  abuse,  or  can  we  harmonize 
and  bring  into  one  power  these  two  forces 
which  apparently  draw  in  opposite  directions  ? 
We  are  inclined  to  believe,  with  what  light  we 
have  at  present,  that  altruism  has  been  carried 
to  an  excess  which  has  militated  against  the 
law  of  nature,  and  has  so  far  done  harm,  and 
our  final  verdict  to-day  is  that  we  must  modify 
this  principle  and  swing  it  around  as  far  as 
possible  into  the  line  of  nature's  laws.  But 
even  here  we  are  again  brought  face  to  face 
with  the  question  whether  we  eventually  de- 


150  Toil    and    Self 

sire  the  good  of  the  individual  or  the  good 
of  the  mass.  It  is  certainly  for  the  good  of 
the  mass  that  the  weak  should  perish,  and  it 
is  not  always  certain  that  it  is  for  the  highest 
good  of  the  individual  that  he  should  survive. 
There  has  long  been  a  theory  that  the  exis- 
tence of  wretchedness  and  sorrow  in  the 
world  was  a  necessity  for  the  inspiration  of" 
such  qualities  as  pity,  mercy,  generosity,  and 
philanthropy,  but  this  argument  lacks 
strength.  The  finer  qualities  can  be  exer- 
cised just  as  well  without  the  existence  of 
such  desperate  causes  for  it.  While  we,  there- 
fore, cannot  accept  fully  the  ideas  of  the  pessi- 
mist, and  the  theory  of  selfishness  as  the  best 
law,  we  must  confess  that  the  growth  of  altru- 
istic ideas  has  not  apparently  improved  the 
general  status  of  the  community  to  any  mate- 
rial extent. 

We  must  bear  in  mind  that  while  the  most 
agonizing  wails  of  humanity  have  been  for 
bread  and  shelter,  in  a  word,  for  existence, 
the  perennial  cry  has  been  for  "more",  and 
the  steady  grumble  for  something  better. 


Toil    and    Self  151 

We  recognize  therein  the  expression  of  an 
innate  desire  and  yearning  for  improvement, 
but  we  may  justly  turn  around  and  say,  "This 
is  a  demand  without  limitations".  If  they 
have  bread  and  a  cottage,  they  want  cake  and 
a  house,  and  thereafter  a  town  and  a  country 
house,  and  then  a  yacht,  and  so  on.  What 
right  has  any  man  to  demand  that  life  shall 
give  more  than  proper  shelter,  wholesome 
food,  and  protection  from  harm.  All  the  rest 
is  the  demand  of  the  intellect,  and  not  of  na- 
ture, the  craving  of  a  conventionalized  brain, 
which  Has  had  certain  standards  set  up  for  it, 
and  which  has  fostered  the  ideas  of  ambition 
and  imitation.  To-day  in  civilized  communi- 
ties fully  nineteen-twentieths  of  all  expendi- 
ture is  for  frills,  all  of  them  unnecessary,  most 
of  them  not  even  useful,  and  many  of  them  bad. 
Their  unique  merit  is  that  they  give  work 
to  many,  but  if  it  were  not  for  the  absorp- 
tion of  money  into  the  hands  of  those  who  buy 
the  non-necessaries,  there  would  be  more  of 
the  necessaries  for  equal  distribution,  and  less 
of  an  everlasting  struggle  to  reach  the  top, 


152  Toil    and    Self 

because  the  top  would  not  be  so  high,  and  so 
unattainable.  We  may,  however,  just  as  well 
reconcile  ourselves  to  the  idea  that  the  fig-leaf 
mantles  which  Adam  and  Eve  made  were  the 
keynotes  ,of  human  life.  Frills  have  been  the 
order  of  the  day  ever  since  then,  and  will  be 
to  the  crack  of  doom.  The  only  reason  that 
Eve  did  not  turn  up  her  nose  at  some  neighbor 
was  because  there  was  no  neighbor  to  sneer 
at,  and  the  only  reason  that  Adam  did  not 
quarrel  with  his  mother-in-law  is  equally  pat- 
ent. As  soon  as  there  were  two  men  to  quar- 
rel •  they  began,  and  their  successors  have 
bravely  kept  it  up  ever  since.  Conditions 
which  ruled  six  thousand  years  ago,  rule  to- 
day, and  influences  and  forces  which  existed 
then,  exist  now.  We  feel  ourselves  free  from 
them  for  the  simple  reason  that  they  appear 
under  a  new  guise. 

The  patriarchal  power  awarded  in  scriptural 
days  to  the  head  of  the  house  through  respect 
is  now  given  simply  because  the  head  of  the 
house  holds  the  purse,  and  consequently  the 
power.  The  giant  physique  which  caused  one 


Toil    and    Self  153 

red  Indian  to  be  the  head  of  his  tribe  rather 
than  another  is  now  represented  by  the  bank 
account  of  the  millionaire;  and  the  frail,  in- 
firm, weak  captive  of  the  savage  nation  is  to- 
day represented  by  the  low-born  and  the 
pauper.  If  we  compare  closely  and  carefully 
the  conditions  of  any  age  with  another,  we 
find  the  relative  classes  almost  identical,  rela- 
tive influences  very  similar,  and  human  na- 
ture, after  all  is  said  and  done,  that  which  has 
changed  the  least,  and  which  in  its  inherent 
qualities  has  defied  change  more  stoutly,  per- 
sistently and  successfully  than  anything  else. 
Islands  have  dropped  out  of  sight,  coast  lines 
have  changed,  rivers  have  been  diverted  from 
their  course,  wooded  mountains  have  become 
nude,  and  sterile  tracts  have  become  fertile, 
but  human  nature  has  remained  practically 
unchanged  in  its  essentials  since  the  days  of 
Adam  and  Eve.  Costumes  and  manners,  and 
theories  and  customs,  and  habits  and  rules, 
and  laws  and  conventions  and  creeds,  have 
changed — but  human  nature  has  not.  It 
started  out  with  the  great  fundamental  law  of 


154  Toil    and    Self 

life,  the  law  of  selfishness,  and  it  will  end  with 
it.  There  may  be  movements  to  curtail  or 
modify  it,  but  over  them  and  through  them 
will  ever  rule  supreme  that  motive,  and  the 
barriers  to  it  will  be  like  straws  before  the  re- 
sistless force  of  a  deep  and  mighty  river 
sweeping  oceanward.  We  may  look  forward, 
and  with  keenest  eye  or  glass  discover  naught 
else,  and  looking  backward  we  can  read  no 
other  lesson.  We  decry  it,  and  denounce  it, 
and  deplore  it,  but  we  must  never  ignore  it, 
for  looking  forward  or  backward  we  see 
SELF  as  the  pillar  of  flame  which  will  al- 
ways guide  man  through  the  wilderness  of  life 
until  there  is  no  man  left  to  live. 

THE  END 


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